


An Endlessly Rising Canon

by carryonstarkid, Heavenward (PreludeInZ), WinterSwallow



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Boys Become Thunderbirds, Catch 22, Dumplings, Gen, Heavenward, Oneupmanship, Pseudonyms, This Ain't Your Mama's SPECTRUM, Ultimatums, Vodka, an itinerant existence of no great connection, brothers brothering brothers, cyberpunk romantic poet, gawky distinctive looking redhead with facial piercings, more nicknames than you can shake a stick at, punk kid, questionable Russian, rampant cannibalism of anderson properties, scarecrow | tinman | cowardly lion, the man in black lets the gray fill him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 121,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7275763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carryonstarkid/pseuds/carryonstarkid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/Heavenward, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterSwallow/pseuds/WinterSwallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead walk into a bar."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: A Nonsensical Offering

**Author's Note:**

> All right.
> 
> So, let's talk about writers. Let's talk about the idea of fanworks as the places where writers go to play. Sometimes, when two writers admire one another very much, they'll write each other love letters. Sometimes those love letters are just declarations of sincere admiration, but  _sometimes_ , those love letters take the form of riffing off one another's fanworks.
> 
> To make a short story long; I write [Heavenward](http://archiveofourown.org/series/299718). WinterSwallow writes [That Which Tears us Apart, Binds us Together](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4919173/chapters/11286154) (henceforth handily shortened to BBT).
> 
> If Heavenward's plot has a driving force, it's manifested in a version of John Tracy, who's gone and done something very stupid, bound himself to EOS, and gone on the run.
> 
> If BBT's plot has the same, it's in the form of a very young Scott Tracy, who's slipped his leash and gone bombing off into the wider world, attempting to find himself, or at least attempting to find something to do that's less crazy than International Rescue.
> 
> So what happens when I decide I want to write her Scott? She returns the favour by writing my John.
> 
> What happened after that was only supposed to be a chance encounter in an airport, a meta-narrative about these two characters having a conversation in a bar. Things Escalated. carryonstarkid (occasional partner in crime & writer of [Fairytale AU fame](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5635141/chapters/12977176)) got involved, to write a sinister Man In Black and our version of SPECTRUM.
> 
> Colloquially we've started referring to this entire endeavour as "The Nonsense". Possibly it's nonsensical. It's still a hell of a read.
> 
> This has gotten out of control. This has been incredibly fun. This is an adventure with slightly-off-model versions of your favourite characters, chasing each other through an alternate timeline, and it's worth a read.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> being a Heavenward-style prologue for _An Endlessly Rising Canon_

A Shephard's Scale is an auditory illusion, a sound produced by the superposition of sine waves, separated by octaves, and produced by separate voices. Each voice advances through its sequence, diminishing in volume even as the one below it rises, and the resulting harmony seems as though it rises endlessly in pitch.

Stories follow a similar path, a narrative rising action, and the best stories have counterpoints and lower harmonies, plots that run against subplots. The best characters are characters whose stories could be stories of their own. The best writers always try to top themselves.

So three main characters walk into a bar. So three stories tell themselves around, above, and through each other. So a plotline escalates and then for some reasons seems to keep escalating. So sometimes a story is about telling a story, and about being a character, and about how worlds and stories sometimes run in far closer parallel than one might think.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware it's pretentious. Possibly you're new around here.


	2. On the Etiquette of Eavesdropping

_It is most absurdly said, in popular language, of any man, that he is disguised in liquor; for, on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety._

_—Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1856)_

 

* * *

 

 When every other language in the airport is foreign, of course it’s easier to hear the English.

That, and the words are practically right in his ear, right across the back of the long bench of seats at the departure gate, of a flight that’s been delayed and delayed again. It’s not looking to be a crowded flight, there aren’t many other people here. Scott’s got his whole half of the bench to himself, free to pull his legs up and stretch them out across two other seats, prop his bag up behind him and lean against it.

And he doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, honestly he doesn’t, it just feels like such a long time since he heard any English. Above the early evening babble of other travelers, periodic announcements blaring from the nearby PA system cycle through several languages, same as the boards with posted flight details, departures and arrivals, dates and times. He  _does_ understand most of them, but still. It’s probably not actually been more than a day, but he’s also not too proud to admit to homesickness, to missing at least the  _sound_  of his first language.

Privately, at least.

And anyway, it’s not Scott’s fault that it’s the sort of conversation that’s just begging for  _someone_  to listen in on. It’s not as though it’s a loud conversation. Probably too quiet for anyone else to hear or be interested in. Theirs isn’t looking as though it’ll be a crowded flight, and their fellow travelers are scattered few and far between. Scott should probably feel guilty. Doesn’t, though.

The nearby voice is patient, though starting to grow pained, annoyed with the other member of the conversation.

“—well, no. No— _No_ —yeah, and also  _no._ You’re being a child— _No_. No, we’re especially not going to do  _that_. Now  _listen_. Hey.  _Hey_. Hey, so, just wondering, am I going to be getting a single word in here, or are you just gonna keep muttering at me?”

 _Girlfriend_. Scott concludes, with all the sage, definite certainty of someone who’s drawn entirely the wrong conclusion.

The guy on the other side of the bench is…well, he’s American, at least, by the accent. He’s sitting cross-legged in his own seat, his bag beside him and a tablet in his lap. Scott’s careful not to look like he’s looking at him, careful to steal only small glances, looking up from the book he hasn’t been reading for the entire hour since this flight had first been delayed. It’s a battered copy of  _Catch-22_. Doesn’t have the heart for it right now.

“Uh huh. Yeah. Yes. Uh huh—no, now hold it, what I  _actually_ said was—don’t do that, don’t parrot me back to me, that’s just—it’s creepy. You know it’s creepy, don’t do that. …yeah. Yeah, right, getting off track—“

There’s not much to see, anyway, he’s got the silvery-grey hood of his sweatshirt pulled up, peeking out above the collar of a jacket that’s cut so well it looks like it’s been sculpted rather than tailored, all in shades of dark grey. Probably comparable in cost to your average plane ticket. Scott knows about having a tailor, knows how to dress. Incognito as he’s meant to be, he’s opted for the attempt to dress like a Russian native, or at least, what he’s composited into his impression of a Russian native. The result is something vaguely sporty, unflatteringly slouchy, and colour-blocked in white, dark blue, and red, as opposed to the good ol’ Red, White, and Blue. It feels a bit slovenly, but before now he hadn’t really cared.

“—I understand. Okay? You’ve made your point. I  _know_  you don’t like him, but I’m saying it’s—no. No. Would you just let me finish? I’m saying that this isn’t your skillset, and we’re not gonna—this is an analog problem, not a digital one. He’s not gonna—listen, it’s not a electronic paper trail we’ll have to worry about, because he’ll slam my picture up against the window at whatever threshold we have to cross and say ‘hey, seen this guy?’ And someone will tell him ‘yes, the gawky, distinctive-looking redhead with the facial piercings, he went that way’. And  _you_  can’t guard against that, and I’m telling you I know better than to fight this. Just because he’s not  _right here_ doesn’t mean he’s not watching. It’s an airport. Limited exits. We’ll do what he wants.”

 _Yikes_. Doesn’t matter, anyway. What the other guy’s talking about remains far more interesting than how he’s dressed.

There’s a loud, frustrated and strangely familiar sigh from across the back of the bench. “No, we’re  _definitely_  not doing _that_. That is really,  _really_  illegal, even by your standards—yes, I’m  _aware_  of your principles, but so long as his objective tracks with  _our_  objective, I have no reason  _not_  to cooperate with him. So I’m sorry, but unless you wanna bail, that means you’re along for the ride.”

 _Sinister_. In the middle of his own personal intrigue, Scott can’t help but be distracted by the idea of someone else’s. It’s a welcome change. At least, until the other guy falls suddenly silent.

Above the gate across the lounge, a camera swivels slightly. Zooms. Scott wouldn’t have thought anything of this, if it hadn’t swiveled to point directly at him. He feels the hairs stand up on the back of his neck and pins his gaze firmly to pages forty-five and forty-six, where he reads the words “ _That’s some catch, that catch-22_ ” over and over again.

And then, “…hmm? What? Oh…really? Gimme the—oh, yeah, hey, you’re right. Good catch. We’ll talk about this later.”

A few more moments pass. For in the space of the last couple, he thinks he’s gotten away with it. Then there’s a firm  _tap tap_ on Scott’s shoulder and he looks up from his book, brushes off his Russian, and hopes that American cordiality doesn’t betray him as he asks, “ _Yes? Can I help you?_ ”

The hood’s been knocked back, revealed the aforementioned distinctive redhead, facial piercings and all, two bright silver points between his eyes. There’s something uncomfortably shrewd about his gaze, and  _his_  Russian is  _flawless. “Speak English as well as you read it?_ ” he questions, and glances down at the pages of the book in Scott’s hands.

Oops.

“Oh. Uh.”

There’s the threat of a grin playing at the corner of his new friend’s mouth, something sort of privately amused in his gaze. “Good book.”

Scott nods, snaps it closed and knows he’s been caught. “Yeah. Old favourite.”

“Must know it really well, not to have turned a page in the last hour.”

There’s a lesson to be learnt here, about observing strangers in airports. If one engages too long in people watching, eventually one becomes the sort of person worth watching. Scott’s currently being watched by a pair of bright, intent green eyes, and hopes that his cheeks haven’t gone bright red, that his first instinct to prickle under such overt observation isn’t going to get him in trouble, “…Dude. That’s kinda creepy, man.”

“So’s eavesdropping.”

“I wasn’t—“

He’s cut off by another babble of Russian over the loudspeaker, as the flight attendant who’s been manning the desk by their gate regrets to announce a delay of yet another hour. Scott and his new friend both look up at the news, and there’s a low, irritated sigh. “This is getting dumb.”

Well. He’s got  _that_  right, anyway, even if it’s an atypically obvious statement from this uncomfortably observant redhead. Still, Scott feels the need to assert, “I wasn’t eavesdropping.”

“Right.”

“I  _wasn’t_.”

There’s a shrug and that faint smile again. “Sure, okay. Well, I wouldn’t blame you, anyway.”

It has to be getting caught in the lie that’s made him so defensive. That, and the way this guy is just irritatingly superior, seems determined to show off his upper hand. “Maybe it’s not polite to have private arguments in the middle of airports.”

“Good advice,” the redhead agrees solemnly. And then he gets up, holds out a hand across the back of the bench by way of introduction. “Feel like we got off on the wrong foot,” he explains, even as Scott reflexively shakes his hand. “What’s your name?”

“Steven.”

“Joseph. I’m gonna go grab a drink. You want to come, Steven?” Scott probably imagines the barest moment of a pause before the other guy says the name that isn’t his.

Well. It beats sitting at the gate for another hour.

* * *

The – well, there’s really no other word for it, is there? – kid stares up at him from his place on the bench, and John’s pretty certain he’s going to say no. Then he nods. “Sure, okay, why not.”

Steven unfolds himself from the chair, and John can’t help but notice that the kid’s taller than him by at least half an inch. Weeks of being the gaijin and John’s grown used to always being the tallest person in any conversation. He notices too that Steven is favouring his left arm as he stuffs his paperback into his beat-up, beige duffel.

“You know a place?” he asks.

John points to the curving steps halfway down the concourse, where a stairs twists downwards and a mustard and blue neon sign promises drinks to those who follow the arrow down the rabbit hole.

“Works for me,” he says, gathers up the duffel and starts walking, doesn’t even check back to see if John’s coming.

John follows.

Allowed a quiet moment of observation, his eyes fall on the teased out puff of unraveling thread where the duffel’s leather strap is stitched to the canvas. The bag’s old, seen some use, but looks to be of good quality. Even with half its stitching undone, the strap is in no danger of coming loose. By contrast, everything else the kid has on is cheaply made, but new. His jeans hang off him at the hips, made for a bigger man, and the grey dirt that’s been ground into his sneakers hasn’t rid them of their new shoe squeak.

He walks slightly hunched over, shoulders ratcheted up around his ears. It’s a _I wish I wasn’t this tall,_ walk. A _nothing to see here,_ walk. A _please, don’t notice me,_ walk. It’s the sort of walk John hasn’t employed since he was seventeen and coltish and sprouting up like a sapling, before he learned that that sort of self-conscious fumbling is only likely to earn you more attention.

“What are you doing now ?” EOS’s voice is acid in his ear. Her last set of plans – the ones to add Kyrano to every watch and terrorist alert list in the eastern hemisphere – disappear from his eye line as she contemplates this newest twist in their game of ‘Herd the Dumb Human’. “Are you starting a band? Acquiring a quest party? Shall I put out adverts for a randy wizard and a barbarian priestess to join us?”

John chuckles. Sometimes her command of idiom leaves him glowing with pride.  “Only if they can shred on the bass,” he says, switching back to Japanese.

“’Scuse me?” The kid half turns, gives him a puzzled look. He’s wearing a pair of wire rimmed spectacles, their lenses tinted just the faintest shade of blue and it’s hard to know what colour his eyes are beneath them. “D’you say something?”

“No, nothing,” says John, “Sorry, private joke.”

But he gets the feeling that the kid picked up on the Japanese just as well as he did the Russian.

_Interesting._

“This is a distraction.”

He lays his fingers over the metal clasp of his messenger bag. _Yes._

“It is a mistake. Who is he?"

_Don’t know. Find out._

John’s spent a lifetime training to help people in trouble. He’s a past master at compiling, categorising and triaging distress, at spotting problems before they begin. He doesn’t think it flatters himself to say that he is an expert in his field, _the_ expert in his field, and experts develop instincts, subconscious mental algorithms that allow the processing of data without effort exerted on conscious thought. He couldn’t always articulate why he knew IR would need to put more resources into what was predicted to be only a minor earthquake, or that Gordon needed to evacuate the oil rig _now_ though the fire still seemed confined, but he knew to trust his instincts, founded as they were on a bedrock of knowledge and training. Maybe it’s those old instincts kicking in, that have pulled his focus to this boy.

Or maybe he’s just lonely and wants to share a drink with someone who can’t seem to see inside his head.

He follows Steven down the steps into the bar.

It’s a small oblong of what might have otherwise been dead space, squeezed between balsa wood walls. There’s mellow jazz playing from the speakers. One wall is made up entirely of browned out glass, beyond which lies the runway. The fixtures are all burgundy pleather and chrome.

The bartender chats to a single patron at the end of the bar. Her acrylic nails are painted burnt sienna. They tap a blithe rhythm out on the countertop, but stop as they approach the bar.

“ _Yes?”_

Steven orders two beers. His Russian is rough but solid. He looks a little incensed when the bartender cards him. He produces his passport and John looks away delicately, happy that EOS will catch the details via his body-cam.

A moment later, his credentials scroll across John’s HUD.

`Steven Jeremy Summers`

`Nebraska, USA`

`22`

Steven Jeremy Summers pulls a wadded up ball of dollars and rubles out of his pocket and fumbles through his change.

John puts a hand out to stop him. He’s been more careful with his money lately, resisting most of EOS’s requests just to bump his bank balance by a zero or four lest it draw attention. But for now, at least temporarily, he’s back on the TI teat. “Thank you,” he says and lays cash on the counter. “No beer. Two glasses of that instead.” He points to the top shelf vodka.

There’s a sharp ping of reprimand in his ear, which makes him wince. EOS helpfully speeds his EKG across his line of vision, slowing the ribbon down to show him every tachyarrhythmia, every premature atrial complex, every non-sustained run of atrial flutter he’s had in the last 24 hours. For extra-emphasis she brings up the rest of his biometrics, highlighting anything outside 95% confidence intervals in red. There is a lot of red.

“Something the matter?” Steven has spotted his flinch.

“Tinnitus,” he says, “Nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”

“I hope your new friend won’t mind mopping you off the floor,” she hisses.

The waitress, who is a head shorter than both of them, eyes them and then the distant reaches of the top shelf. “ _I’ll bring it to your table,”_ she says. John lays another bill upon the counter.

They slide into a booth. Steven removes his baseball cap. Beneath it, his hair is ruddy brown, shaped into what would have been a tidy high and tight about two weeks back. There are, John notices, scraggles of ginger in his five o’clock shadow. He rubs his head. “Do you think they do chicken wings?”

“I doubt it very much.”

“I should have grabbed breakfast.”

There’s silence as both of them search for what to say next. John’s lost the art of casual conversation with strangers. The usual airport safe zones, “Where’d you come from?” and “Where are you going?” seem like they would be uncomfortable to ask, and even more uncomfortable to answer.

The silence stretches like a rubber band and abruptly snaps back as Steven catches his eye and they both laugh, simultaneously.

“I suppose we could ask about those chicken wings,” says John.

“Not much of a conversationalist, is he?” EOS chimes in.

John clears his throat.

“Sort of bovine, in fact.”

John clears his throat again.

“Ask him where he got his credentials. They’re impeccably forged. All the way back to elementary school in Idaho.” She’s popping any fragments of the young man’s footprint that interest her into his display. A potted history of his life goes by too quick for John to read. “I can’t find any digital fingerprint at all.”

_R -E- A- L?_

He’s spells it out in Morse with his fingers on the chrome edge of the table.

EOS gives a dismissive laugh, the noise of an expert deriding a woeful amateur.

But what’s got John on edge is Steven’s flicker of attention, carefully curtailed. Even Kyrano hadn’t noticed John’s tapped out signalling. And while John is reasonably certain that almost no one under the age of 25, who isn’t directly related to Jefferson G Tracy, understands Morse code anymore, he isn’t 100% certain.

Or maybe the kid’s just noticing his scars.

He turns his hands over, massages the hashmarks that criss-cross his palms. He should really invest in gloves. “Implanted hardware,” he says, by way of explanation. “It’s a biofeedback system.”

“Yes, I know!” the kid blurts out. “Subcutaneous electromagnets to fine tune interface responsiveness. I’ve… I’ve seen something like them before. Is that a micro-transmitter?”

“Hmm?”

Steven tugs his own earlobe.

“Oh.” John’s surprised. “Yes.” In the last couple of weeks he’s seen all manner of responses to his piercings, from horror to alarm, to satisfied approval, to bald lust, but the young man’s the first person to correctly divine their true purpose.

“Carbon blend?”

“Bio-polymer.”

Steven nods. “Smart. A friend of mine wanted to get one when he was in high-school. But the teachers made him take it out.”

The bartender brings their drinks, sets them down on a pair of prawn pink cocktail napkins.

“Thank you.”  He gives her another tip as she goes.

Steven picks up his glass and spins the clear liquid

John holds his up too. “Your health.”

“Your well-being.”

Their glasses clink. They drink.

* * *

He’s got to be at least thirty. Scott’s senior by nearly a decade, maybe more. Maybe all his ease is just accountable to age, to acquired confidence. Scott can’t imagine that someone else in similar—if obviously not the same—straits wouldn’t feel just as out of place, as ill at ease, as certain that  _everyone_  can just  _tell_  he doesn’t belong. But no. Apparently not. Joseph doesn’t seem bothered in the least by the barkeep’s habitual stare. Goes as far as to summon her over once again, upon catching her looking, to be sweet talked into doing up some food.

Not, his companion specifies, greasy French fries or limp Mozzarella sticks, nor anything so pedestrian as pretzels and peanuts. Something she would serve her own sons, if she happened to find them so far from home and so clearly starving.

It’s probably about a fifty-fifty split between charm and cash that has the older woman laugh and say, “ _Grandsons, more likely._ ”

“ _Really? That I won’t believe. And hopefully not, my grandmother can’t cook to save her life_ ,” is fired right back, gets another hearty laugh as she snatches more cash from those long, scarred to hell fingers.

Scott wonders if he was ever so blithely obnoxious about his own material wealth, if he’s ever negged on a woman twice his age. Surely not on purpose. Technically not quite negging, either, something more to the tune of an issued challenge. 

 _My American grandmother can’t cook. So_ _ **represent**_ _, babushka._   _For God and country._

Whatever. Food is food, but neither is he used to being the party being treated, wonders if he’s ever made his own friends feel so awkward. “Hey, thanks,” he says, in an attempt to be gracious.

Joseph has turned up a bottle cap, forgotten at the inside edge of the table, and has started to stick and unstick it from his fingertips. He shrugs. “Don’t thank me yet. Maybe she can’t cook either.”

Maybe the trick is just being an unrepentant asshole. Scott’s not sure if he’s supposed to be impressed, is starting to wonder if he’s being picked up. The clothing, the attitude, the vodka. It’d all add up. Well. Food is still food.

And he’s not completely inexperienced at being a bit of an asshole himself. So, “You know… Uh, hope you don’t mind me saying so. And maybe it’s just that airport thing, I’m probably imagining it. But I could swear I know you from someplace.”

This is a trick of psychology, an invitation for Joseph to start to rattle off a list of places he’s been, places where he’s significant enough to be memorable, to reveal more of himself than he has already. Instead there’s the barest hesitation, maybe the slightest narrowing of Joe’s eyes and then, nonchalant, “Cover of Wired, a few years back. I imagine that’s it.”

 _Oh._  

“Oh.” 

Well. Probably that explains the clothing, the attitude, the money. Certainly it adds intrigue to the implants. Scott starts to ferret around in his memory, trying to come up with a last name to follow Joseph, among giants in the tech industry. His dad would know. His dad would know exactly who this is, the sort of brash young industry hotshot who swans around Russian airports in high-end couture and behaves with such effortless magnanimity towards another wayward countryman. These aren’t the sorts of names Scott usually knows, so he prompts, “Joseph…?”

“Heller.”

Okay,  _now_  he’s blatantly being fucked with, and the fact is somehow enough to get a rise of temper, maybe helped along by the vodka. The vodka, which is starting to seem more and more like a childish, adolescent mistake, the sort that children make when they’re pretending to be adults, and bite off more than they can chew. Scott’s hand crumples the top of his ball cap, the other snatches the strap of his bag. “Yeah, okay. Right. Thanks, but I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

There’d been the beginning of a grin on Not-Joseph’s face, but this falls away immediately. For a moment that cool composure slips, confusion and then contrition, like he realizes he’s made a bad joke even as Scott stands up, affronted. “Oh, hey—wait. Sorry. Sorry, I’m sorry. I wasn’t…I’m not trying to mess with you. I’d just rather not say. I guess that’s weird. No, I just…tend to travel incognito. Makes things easier, sometimes. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Scott’s standing rather stiffly, but he can smell onions cooking and hear the sizzling of oil in the small kitchen behind the bar proper. It might not be worth the degree of offense he’s taken. Maybe it’s just exactly what Joe says it is. Still, waspish, he retorts, “Yeah, well, guess if I was sharking around a Russian airport for tail half my age, I would wanna give a fake name too.”

He means it as an insult, the lowest of blows, and in fairness, those green eyes do widen briefly at the accusation. But then the grin flashes up again and the redhead just arches an eyebrow at him. “Yes, I’m very much in the habit of picking up unaccompanied minors at airports. Eastern Slavic is usually more my taste, so I suppose in the case of  _your_  cheap imitation, I’m slumming a little.” He shakes his head, sighs and then seems apologetic. “I mean, no. Not that. Sorry if that’s been the impression, but no. Jesus, I’ve got kid brothers your age. Definitely not.” He pauses again, and then, hesitantly, “If you do want to leave—I mean, if I’ve made you uncomfortable, it wasn’t my intention. But if you want to go, feel free. But at least wait and take some food with you, okay?”

As if she’s been cued—and at this point it’s starting to seem possible—the barkeep reappears with a plate, steam rising off it, boxes him in. Scott drops back into his seat with a thud, and in the middle of the table is a heaping pile of pale white dumplings, speckled with squares of diced onion, fried translucent in the middle and black at the edges. Around the edge of the plate are slices of dense black rye, crisp and fried in hot oil. There’s a bowl of sour cream, precarious at the edge of the plate.

And Scott’s not going anywhere.

“ _Good_?” the waitress questions, as Joseph pulls a piece of bread in half and takes a bite.

It doesn’t take a Michelin star to fry some bread and plate up some  _vareniki_ , but this still gets a nod and another of those effortlessly charming smiles from Joseph, “ _Puts Grandma to shame, thank you. And another round, please?_ ”

The barkeep chuckles, gathers up two empty shot glasses and snatches up the discarded bottlecap. “ _Anything, for my poor starving grandsons_.”

The plate gets pushed a few centimeters closer to Scott’s side of the table as the waitress departs and Joseph leans back, makes it clear that he’s far less hungry than Scott is. Scott doesn’t need telling twice, burns his fingers a little on steaming hot dough, onions sticking to his fingers. Half of the dumplings are stuffed with potato and cabbage, the other half with rich, tangy quark. They’re half-gone before Joseph reaches across the table for another small slice of bread, and all the way gone by the time the barkeep returns with two tall, damp glasses of cold milk, served with a wink and a comment of, “ _Good for growing boys_.”

“I suppose I deserved that.” Not-Joseph chuckles again, shoves his glass across the table as the waitress departs. Scott’s not even offended, with his own glass already empty, even though his companion goes on to clarify, “Lactose-intolerant.”

“Dunno if I believe you,” Scott answers, though with food sticking to his ribs, he’s starting to feel a little less prickly and a far more willing to forgive a few white lies, here and there. Not like he can talk, anyway. “Guess I don’t care.”

“Appreciate it.” And then, maybe by way of apology, “My brothers call me ‘J’, sometimes. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t feel like giving up much more than that.”

Scott shrugs. “Whatever, man. Were you really on the cover of Wired?”

Amused, now, “Go through their back-issues sometime, if you really want to know.”

Scott nods, attempts to give J a knowing once-over. “Probably not Wired. Probably something embarrassing, probably you’re some kind of fashion designer or something. Not even anything that useful, actually, probably just some dopey male model. Probably it’s actually the men’s edition of Vogue. I bet you look all drugged-up and vapid, probably half-naked and   _oiled_ , or something. It’s fine if you’re embarrassed. I would be, too.”

“You’re the one who says you recognize me.”

Now Scott adopts a haunted stare into the middle-distance, and tries to make his voice as hollow and haunted as he can, “There’s things that can’t be unseen.”

J laughs at this and Scott suddenly gets the impression that he’s not actually someone who laughs at much, or often. There’s something a little too loud about it, a little too free, like he’s not practiced at reining it in. “Christ. You’re  _somebody’s_ little brother, that’s for damn sure.”

Scott isn’t. But maybe Steven is. Maybe the trick to this whole thing is just to keep lying. So he shrugs, nods, “Got me pegged,” he affirms. “Baby of the family. That’s me.”

“Yeah, you definitely act like your standard-issue spoiled goddamn brat. Drink your milk.” But he says it the way an older brother would say it, with light, sardonic affection, so Scott just rolls his eyes. J’s found a fork to stick and unstick his fingertips to, and he doesn’t look up as he questions, “Mind indulging someone else’s older brother, and telling me just what you’re doing on the other side of the world from home, baby-of-the-family?”

* * *

In the aftermath of his question there’s a long pause.

It’s dusk outside now, and the runway lights are flicking on one by one.

Steven drags a crust of bread through dumpling grease, dunks it in sour cream and pops it into his mouth. “Can’t you guess? I make a living schlepping from city to city getting rich assholes to buy me stuff.”

“Is that true?”  Compared to the bottle cap, the fork is altogether a less pleasant tactile experience. The tines poke at the tender ridges of eschar in the pads of his fingers.   

“If you desire physical human companionship,” pipes up EOS, “There are far more efficient, uncomplicated ways of obtaining it.”

John’s never been interested in that kind of companionship, but this has always been a difficult concept to explain to EOS, for a very different reason than it had been to explain to his four brothers. EOS views all biological functions as strange and other and faintly distasteful, but also necessary processes for the optimisation of the bits of John she’s actually interested in. She views maintenance of his physical body as a brand of horticulture, and takes what he sometimes feels is undue interest in things like the specific gravity of his urine and the regularity of his bowel habit. She has been known at times to drop journal papers on the importance of regular sexual activity into his field of vision. On one occasion, while he had been talking to Hanzo-Sensei about link structures in the scanning protocols aboard the Hankyu hornet trains, she had even dropped a helpful and explicit educational video into his HUD.  

 _E-W-W. N-O_ He types out on the tines of the fork.

Or perhaps she just knows this is the best way to get a rise out of him. She has made it pretty plain she seeks the termination of this conversation.

“If you’re hoping to drink him under the table as a method of seduction I should point out he has at least eight kilograms of lean mass on you, and that you are unlikely to be successful.”

_S-T-O-P_

His attention slides back to the kid, who grins at him, reckless and a little mischievous. That thorny shell’s receded a little, greased by alcohol and cracked by food. “You think it’s not?”

John gives him his own once over. “No. Rent boys dress better than you.”

“In your experience,” says Steven with a wolfish grin.

“Right. In my experience.” John arches his eyebrow. “What are you really doing out here?”

Steven shrugs and John can see him wince as he catches his wounded shoulder. “Horsing around Eurasia. Seeing the world. The stuff you’re supposed to do in your twenties. Finding myself.” There’s a roteness to the way he says it.

“Don’t you usually pick a friend to go see the world with?”

“My buddy ditched me in Istanbul. Fell in love with a local girl.” He runs another bread crust through the sour cream.

“Do it yet? Find yourself?”

“Huh.” Steven tsks with checked irritation, and his eye rolls towards John as if he’s just daring him to make the next trite remark. “Funny. I’ll let you know.”

“You go to college?”

“Colorado State.”

EOS scrolls through the relevant information for him, matching Steven’s words with all available data. John gains access to his transcripts at Colorado, his mediocre grades, his list of multiple incompletes and his membership of the rowing and judo club. If this is a frame-up, it’s a meticulous one. There’s a whole life constructed here. Details of accommodation and electric bills, overdue library books, raffle tickets. That A- in Classics among the ranks of Bs and Cs might be a hacker’s mistake or an indication of real enthusiasm. That ticket for public urination might be high spirits or a malicious digital joke.

“Then what, army?” He lets his gaze rake Steven’s hairline.

“Navy,” the kid replies, pulling at another slice of bread. “Pensacola.” And then delicately, deliberately. “I washed out.” Under his tan, John can see him blush.

His papers of discharge `‘for entry level performance and conduct’` flash up into John’s field of view, seem to confirm this. He’d hoped to be a navy pilot it seems.

“Too bad.”

_F-A-M-I-L-Y?_

A patchwork of childhood goes by. Distant relatives, care homes, foster families. An itinerant existence of no great connection. The names of the man and woman on his birth cert register as deceased. A sad history, or equally possible, an effective smokescreen.

“I suppose you went to MIT?” Steven offers a leading question of his own.

“Self-taught actually,” John invents. “Start up in my parents’ garage.”

The barkeeper arrives to clear their plates, depriving John of his fork. She brings with her the bottle of vodka and two glasses. Steven waves her away, asks for a beer instead, but the barkeep leaves the bottle on the table anyway, along with the glasses. “ _It’ll put hairs on your chest, mishonook.”_ She winks at him.

“ _It’s okay,_ ” says John, with a smile. “ _Thank you.”_ To Steven he says, “ _We don’t know how long we’re going to be delayed.”_

“ _Listen to your brother.”_ She winks again. “ _He knows what he’s talking about.”_

“ _He is not my–”_ But she’s already sashaying back to the bar, broad hips swaying, oblivious to his indignation.

John smiles. Whenever the kid’s aggrieved, his posture suddenly gets a lot better. It’s like watching a wilting balloon get an infusion of helium gas. The hunch goes out of his spine and his shoulders ping right back. His jaw thrusts up and forward and suddenly he looks taller and more self-possessed.

“What are you laughing at?” Remembering himself, Steven sinks back into a slump. He reaches for the bottle of vodka and pours two sloppy shots into the glasses, slides one across the table to John, but keeps the tin bottle cap, the thing John’s been really after, for himself. He bounces it from knuckle to knuckle. “I just don’t want people thinking my brother is a tech head with daddy issues. My elder brother,” he adds somewhat unnecessarily, after a moment’s thought.

“What makes you say I have daddy issues?”

Steven counts his reasons off on his fingers. One. “Hotshot tech industrialist.” Two. “Facial piercings.” Three. “Complete sociopath. Ergo, daddy issues. Q.E.D.”

John laughs aloud, a crackle of mirth that surprises him even more than it does Steven. That’s the second time he’s laughed in half an hour. It’s sort of an odd feeling to laugh where other people can hear him, like he’s giving away a piece of himself he shouldn’t. “You’re a piece of work,” he says, “But you’re maybe not wrong.”

“You like him,”says EOS. “This is odd. You never like new humans.”

Deprived of a real way to communicate with her he has to settle for glaring at his own reflection in the mirror above the table.

“I am concerned. Perhaps this new alteration in personality is the result of the early stages of encephalitis. Are you suffering from meningism or urticaria? You should go lie down.”

It’s not that he likes him, he wants to tell her, just that the kid’s a puzzle, and he can’t resist a puzzle. The life revealed in his background check, a life of mediocrity, of also ran, of _almost just_ and _never quite,_ doesn’t tally with what he sees in front of him. You don’t get a C in Beginner’s French and then casually pick up Russian and Japanese. But if EOS is right, and the whole thing’s a high class forgery, then the kid seems too raw and guileless to be the author or agent of such a detailed conspiracy.

What he needs is more time to figure this out.

He leans across the table. “How would you like to come work for me?” he says. “Be my personal assistant?”

John needs a PA like a hole in the head. And he can just imagine what Kyrano will say when he tells him they’ve picked up a stray. But, if he’s going under the knife pretty soon, as is looking more and more likely, maybe he’ll need someone to carry his bags for a few weeks, so he doesn’t rip his stitches.

And when it comes time for John and Kyrano to part ways, as it ultimately must, Steven will be in Kyrano’s sphere and Kyrano can make sure he gets home.

And, the thought strikes him, if it turns out there is no home for him to go to, then Kyrano can see that he’s packaged off. To the island. And to Scott.

This makes John smile. There’s a nice circuity to it, that he can source his own replacement.

“Oh, so this is a _job interview_?” the kid drawls.

“If you want it to be.”

Steven sits back in his seat. The bottle cap flips between his fingers, over and under. “I get a lot of job offers.”

“Not like this one.”

But Steven just barks a laugh. “I get told that a lot too.”

“Really?”

“Lately, yeah.” Steven removes his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose. Beneath them, his eyes are a startling blue. “So tell me something, Mr. Call-Mw-J, if you want me to come work for you.”

“Yes?”

The bottle cap flicks into John’s lap.

“Who is it you’re talking to?”

* * *

 

The silence stacking up on the other side of the table is that of a blow landed, a thrust that hasn’t been met with a parry, maybe the first time J hasn’t had something to fire back with, no dry wit or digs at Scott’s relative youth.

Neither is there an attempt to explain what Scott’s tacitly pointed out with the provision of the bottle cap—as opposed to the edge of the table or a fork or any other metallic something else for those magnets to pulse off of. Morse code. Seeing it is the same as hearing it, once you know you’re seeing it, your brain handily fills in the sounds. Daadaadaa-daa-dadada-dadaadaada. The way J’s fingertips habitually tap out words—Scott hasn’t caught everything that’s been said, but once he’d known to watch for it, it had been almost alarmingly obvious that it was more than just a nervous tic. At first he’d wondered if it was some kind of signal meant for him, if this was some other sort of international agent, inserted into his sphere—but then he’d remembered that overheard conversation, all those juicy details. There’s an earpiece securely in J’s ear. It’s not that broad a leap to assume someone’s talking in it.

There’s an awkward cough from his companion, and for some reason the fact that he seems at a loss for words makes Scott want to grin at him and glow with pride and say, “ _Ha. Gotcha._ ”

He finds himself wondering, maybe incongruous with the situation, if this is how John feels, when he’s being wickedly, obnoxiously clever. If so, it explains a lot about how often John tends to be clever, because the rush of getting one up on the guy across the table is a potent one.

Except—

Except there’s never any cruelty to John’s particular brand of cleverness. Sometimes Scott wonders if John can even help it, the way information just bubbles and bleeds out of him, the way some statement or misstatement of fact will snag on a thread from the tapestry of his brain and send him spooling off down a long strand of thought and insight and “ _actually, did you know…_ ”

John’s not really one for oneupmanship. That had always been Scott’s department, maybe especially where his obnoxiously clever little brother is concerned. The number of times he’s stopped John dead in the middle of some treatise about something-or-other, with his own blend of sharp, wicked insight— “ _Yeah, that’s real cool, Johnny. D’you think you only mention it because you’re trying to get dad to notice how smart you are_?”

It hasn’t actually been that long since the question fell flat in the middle of the conversation, but long enough for the silence to be significant, and long enough for J’s weak chuckle to seem out of place, as he reaches for what’s probably on the generous side of your standard shot. His fingertips trace the rim of the glass as he finally says, “Someone who told me this was a mistake.”

He drinks and though Scott’s quick to follow him, he lingers long enough before his own swallow to notice that this time it seems to hit the redhead a little harder, to catch him somewhere in the chest, with a sharp draw of breath and the comment, apparently half to himself, “ _That_ , too.”

“What was?” Scott asks, before he can help it, before he can tactfully back out of this line of inquiry, with this new awareness that maybe he’s probing towards something sensitive. The best thing to do would be to back off, to remark about the weather, or the weirdness of the airport, or spiral off into some semi-relevant anecdote about some patched together fictional girlfriend. “What’s a mistake?”

There’s a gesture that seems to encapsulate the drinks, the bar, the entire conversation, and the continued association with one Steven Jeremy Summers. There’s a sort of faraway quality to J’s gaze that seems to track with all the moments where Scott’s already suspected his attention was divided. The idea that someone somewhere has something to say about the drinks, the bar, the entire conversation—and one Steven Jeremy Summers—maybe the way Scott feels his skin crawl is something that should’ve happened earlier. Mistakes.

His fingers start tapping again, rapid and this time with a certain sternness, firm strikes of the tips on the top of the bottle cap, snatched from his lap and sitting flat on the table—N-O.

D - O - N - O - T

S - T - O - P

S - T - O - P

E - O - S - I - S - A - I - D - N - O

Scott’s aware that he’s staring, aware that he’s not done anything to cover for it. Someone’s been rumbled, but it’s not clear just who, until—

“Steven Jeremy Summers, lately of Hastings, Nebraska.” Intoned, lacking any real emotion, freezing Scott where he sits. J isn’t looking at him, staring intently at nothing at all, a fixed point maybe a foot above the table, and to Scott’s left. “Twenty-two, birthdate: August fifteenth. Family: either dead from your early childhood or assigned to you by the state. A great deal of shuffling around in that department. Not, as it happens, the baby of any single family. They’ve flubbed this, by the way, because somewhere back in 2045 you were in the care of two families concurrently. Get that fixed, it doesn’t escape thorough scrutiny. Never mind. Unremarkable academics, capped by a thoroughly mediocre attempt at CSU. The Navy. A passport that’s been through some  _very_  interesting places. The passport’s actually the only thing holding this all together, because from what I understand, a great deal of the aforementioned is very,  _very_  false.”

Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned about people watching in Russian airports. Maybe it’s a bad idea to play these games with a guy like this, to jab and rib and poke fun. Scott doesn’t know what the next move is supposed to be. The board’s fallen out from the bottom of the whole thing, the pieces are in freefall. Mistakes.

J clears his throat and his gaze fixes on Scott in a penetrating, knowing sort of way, intent and possibly even stern, for the first time since they started talking, “I’ve been reminded,” he says, cool, deliberate, understated, “That I already have a PA. In point of fact, I have the PA  _from hell_ , and she doesn’t especially care for being noticed. She’s currently threatening to splash your details over every notable channel where missing persons are concerned.  _I_  don’t really care who you are or what you’re doing or where you’re going—why you’re a walking forgery, why you know how to pick up on an outdated binary pulse code—why you seem not to know when you’re pushing your luck—but as far as things I  _do_  care about, how about we abandon the question of just who I’ve got in my ear. Sound fair?”

Holy  _shit_. Okay.

“Yeah. Uh, yes. Sorry. Yeah.”

Still with that penetrating stare and it doesn’t matter how old J is or how many lies he’s told—is telling—himself, Scott’s got the uncomfortable feeling that he’s been honest about at least one thing; he’s  _somebody’s_  big brother, because these are the sorts of questions that follow, rapidfire and unsubtle. “Are you in trouble? Do you need someone to bail you out? Do you know where you’re going, what you’re doing next? Do you need help?” There’s a pause, a big brother realizing he’s brought the heavy a little too hard and fast, and his tone softens slightly, “Look—sorry. You don’t seem like a bad kid, details aside. You’re a long way from home. So am I. Say the word and I’ll drop it; we can talk about this stupid fucking flight and how we’d both rather be out of here by now.  _But_ —if you need help, you can tell me that, too.”

New board. New pieces. Your move, Scott Tracy.

* * *

In the aftermath of John’s threats, the kid looks like he’s been picked clean, like someone’s taken a knife to his personality and scraped away at the inside, shucked him of humour, of spunk, of any shred of confidence. He’s never looked younger or more lost as he murmurs a string of uncertain affirmatives. “Yeah. Uh, yes. Sorry. Yeah.”

He listens, glassy-eyed, as John makes his offer of help, and then, when John, eager now to have this whole interaction concluded, finally snaps, “Well, is there?” he looks at him as if he’s really only seeing him for the first time.

Then he seizes hold of his bag strap and his cap and removes himself from the booth, “You’re right. This was a mistake. Sorry to have bothered you. Good flight.”

There’s a low hum in John’s ear, a digital growl. EOS is reminding him that she’s there, that she has his back. A mistake, all three of them have said it now, but she said it first. As usual, she had been right.

More than a month on the run and he has never got more than superficially involved with any living human person. Even with Uncle Lee and Kyrano relations had been ultimately transactional, _I’ll give you what you want for what I need._ He had deviated from standard procedure and it had cost him.

And why had he done it? Some shred of unwise sentiment? Some leftover fragment of IR hard wiring? What banal impulse had prompted him to take interest, _to involve himself,_ with this reckless, half-feral, enigma of a kid? Had he really considered taking on the boy and his problems? Of dragging whatever trouble followed into his own orbit?

The kid doesn’t look back, meanders towards the bar. They’re the only patrons in the place now and it’s fully dark outside. The barkeep watches him approach with motherly amusement that changes to something like puzzlement.

As he gets farther away, the hum in John’s ear tapers off. “John, are you alright?”

“I’m sorry, EOS. I won’t do that again.” The bottle cap clings to his thumb. He doesn’t bother with the Morse, but speaks soft enough that only she can hear him.

Her response is to pump a burst of static into his ear. The audio file she plays is chopped up and crackly and the loudest sound is a rhythmic _whump, whump,_ like water through a pump. He almost doesn’t recognise it. It’s the sound of the gravity ring aboard ‘Five, turned up to many times its normal speed.

He can hear breathing, _his breathing,_ filtering through the scratchy audio. A grunt of effort, the squeak of boots slipping on the polythene floor, a soft groan.

And then his own voice, strained with effort. “ _I was worried for you because as unique and as special and as powerful as you are, you’re alone.”_

A blip as the audio skips forward. “ _I know how scary that can be.”_

And then again.

“ _I don’t want control, EOS. I want a partner. I want a friend.”_

“You care about interesting minds, John.” Her own clarion voice cuts through the damaged audio. “And you have empathy for lost souls. That’s not an impulse I can ever regret. Even if it makes you do things that are extremely dumb.” For emphasis, a cartoon lemming trots across his field of vision and plummets off the face of the earth.

He chuckles, then his gaze traces along the floor to where the kid is speaking softly to the waitress in his lilting Russian, trying to offer her money to pay for the food. She shakes her head, bewildered, and when she won’t take his cash he leaves it in a pathetic pile on the countertop. “ _Thank you.”_

“What do you think?” he asks.

“There is an insufficiency of available data to make a complete threat assessment,” says EOS, as she’s been saying that all along, unnerved maybe by the absence of reliable information on ‘Steven’. “I will arrange for him to be picked up by security.”

The kid starts up the stairs.

“Nothing serious,” she adds, when John starts to object. “A customs violation, a case of mistaken identity. He will miss his flight, spend a few days in lock up and be allowed to move on.”

To be honest, it’s a relief. The thought of going back up to the lounge and having the kid glower at him from above the unread pages of _Catch-22_ or be put too near to him on their cramped 64-seater flight, makes him feel sticky and anxious. The flicker of conscience is an easy thing to quell.

“Okay. Do it,” he says.

And that’s when he hears the pounding of feet on steps. The kid rushes back into the bar, comes straight at him.

John gets to his feet, fast.

The habit he had noticed before, the way the kid’s entire demeanour changes when he’s distracted, is in full effect now. He moves with a rapid quickstep, with all the economy of motion of a natural athlete. John is 6’3 and slender, which makes him look taller, but the kid is 6’4 at least and there are broad shoulders hidden beneath that baggy hooded shirt. He stops short of John, reaches out and grabs hold of the table. His knuckles are white with the force of his grip.

“Do it,” he snarls. “Smear my face over every channel in the digisphere. Stick my name on every No Fly list and terrorist alert database you can find. I dare you.”

An alarm blares in the kitchen, and the barkeep is pulled away to make sure her microwave is not exploding. EOS, covering for him. “Kid…”

“They’ll be on me in three minutes – well, it’s Russia, say four. You get lucky and they’ll stick me in the gulag, you can forget you ever saw me. But when they come for me, when they knock me flat and jam a rifle butt against the back of my neck, the first thing I’m going to tell them is all about my friend, the redhead with the nasal piercings and the distinctive scars. I’ll tell them how he’s a black hat hacker, first class, who has his sticky fingers deep in their systems already. I’ll tell them how their info can’t be trusted, how it’s actively working against them. I’ll tell them how if they want to catch my friend, right now, today, all they’ve got to do is take their digital problem and turn it into an analog one.”

_Oh, shit._

So the abyss really does stare back.

“I’m sorry you and your friend – EOS, is it? – aren’t impressed by my credentials. I guess we can’t all be wunderkinds, but seeing as you’re both so smart, I’m sure you’ll know all about the hard lines.”

John feels a squeezing in his chest as his heart skips a beat.

“Buried two hundred feet below sea level. Wrapped up in lead and concrete, amazingly primitive, to be used only in the event of a cyber terror attack. I bet the operators are out of practice, their Morse code is probably not even as good as yours or mine. But however slowly they send the message to every airport in the Global Defence Network it’s still going to get there faster than any plane you can charter.”

He lets go of the table, but he’s not done. He squares up to John, invades his space, ripe with the threat of violence. “You think that you can scare me? Must be fun for you, right? Yeah, I’ve seen your sort before. Swanning around, taking what you want, bullying whomever you want. It must be fun to pull apart people’s lives in an instant and then think you know their story. Big man with big powers, huh? Well, take it from an expert, buddy, at the megalomaniac Grand Prix you aren’t even in the field. So try me. Explore the nuclear option, I dare you.”

He slings his duffel over the shoulder turns and walks towards the stairs.

“Stop him!” says EOS.

“What?”

“The servers of the GDF Transit Authority are some of the securest in the world. I need 7.3 minutes to access then and register you as an undercover TA Marshal, a further 18 seconds to upload a profile of him that identifies his known sympathies with the terrorist group Red Cloud and his recent meetings with its leader, General Simeon in Cairo. When I do that we are untouchable. Until then we are vulnerable. Stop him!”

“Hey, Steven, wait!”

The kid ignores him, makes for the door.

The fire doors at the bottom of the stairs slam shut, the door to the kitchen too. They’re, both of them, trapped in the bar.

The kid whirls, drops his duffel to the floor. “Let me out.” His fists clench.

“Forget it,” says John, “We’re going to talk.”

“No, we’re done.”

“I said let’s talk.”

“No. I’ve had one too many maniacs whispering in my ear lately. And I’ve seen how they respond when I won’t see it their way.”

“I meant what I said,” says John. “You can trust me.”

“Yeah’,” says the kid with a hollow laugh, “This is exactly what trust looks like.”

“I…”

That’s when the kid goes for the fire alarm.

And that’s when the lights go out.

Not just the overhead lights either, or even the ones that power the emergency exit signs and floor strips. It’s all lights, everywhere: the runway, the taxiing planes and the city in the distance. They’re left in total darkness.

He hears Steven grunt. “Holy shit.”

John’s infrared filters should have switched in automatically, but EOS has disabled them. He stands just as lost in the dark as Steven does.

Then, slowly light begins to suffuse the room. It comes from every blank screen, from every AR interface, forming a halo of white light around them. It’s been so long since she appeared this way to him, he’s forgotten what it looks like.

A clock face made up of twelve points of light glows from every screen.

“Hello, Steven, My name is EOS.”

 


	3. The Uncertainty of Ultimatums

_“The man in black travels with your soul in his pocket.”_

_― Stephen King, The Gunslinger_

* * *

 

Right.

So.

Maybe there’s a league of megalomania above what Scott’s already aware of. This has to be like— _gigalomania_. He’d been rattled by hearing his own fiction of a life story recited back to him, for sure, absolutely. Probably nothing beyond the talents of your average hacker, but still. Unnerving. Scott’s aware that his assumed identity isn’t quite watertight. He’d assumed it was a matter of precaution on the part of those who’d provided it for him. But that’d been kid’s stuff, that had been child’s play. That’d been the sort of thing a schoolyard bully would do, and there’s only one thing to do with bullies.

 _This_ , though.

“Steven?” the voice prompts again, soft and sweet and innocent. There’s a pulse of white lights, ringing the room all around. It’s become a strange place, leeched of colour. There’s nothing but black and white and the soft thudding of fists against the heavy kitchen door, muffled cursing in Russian.

Scott’s eyes cut to the mysterious J—apparently the bit player in this whole scenario, a puppet for the girl ( _???!?_ ) behind the curtain—and maybe it’s the stark interplay of light and shadow, but Scott’s never seen anyone look so stricken. He reassesses his earlier estimate that J’s in his thirties—gotta be younger. Not much younger, but young enough that he looks more like a child than an adult in this light, all the lines of care and stress and weariness painted over in darkness like India ink.

It’s not Steven who answers the voice in the dark and Scott’s surprised to hear something like fear, something like actual _panic_ , from someone who’s been so calm up til now.

“Wh-what’re you doing— _don’t do this_ — _EOS_. EOS, we—“

The lights pulse again, like a flash of lightning with no thunder to follow it. Just a sweet, girlish voice, lightly accented, saying, “Hush. Calm down.”

There’s a broken groan and then the heavy sound of J dropping back into his seat, hands clenching at the edge of the table, and then one of them coming up to pull down his face, a figure carved from raw tension. “I  _can’t_. This is a mistake. This was a  _mistake._ I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to go…to go like this, I’m sorry. What’re…what’re you—“

She’s still calm, whoever she is, wherever she is. “You’re the one who taught me how we deal with ultimatums. It’s going to be okay.”

Scott’s staring, or he wouldn’t have caught the way J’s eyes dart up, meet his across the room and then immediately drop back down. He looks haunted, hunted, and Scott wonders what the hell had compelled him to make contact, to initiate things back at the gate. Surely he would’ve been better served with his head down and his hood up, talking to his…daughter? Scott’s going to go with daughter.

He doesn’t talk to his daughter like any father Scott’s ever heard. “If he—EOS,  _Christ_ , we can’t trust him. They’re gonna—“

“No one’s going to find me. Now hush.”

“What the  _fuck_ is going on?”

This voice is hoarse and harsh and startled. It’s dark enough that it takes Scott a minute to realize that he’s the one it belongs to. He’s still near enough to the wall that he could reach the fire alarm, but it seems abundantly clear that pulling it won’t do anything. He hears the sound of a camera, panning. The soft whirr of a zooming lens. There’s another faint groan from J and his head drops into his hands as the girl—the voice?—answers.

“At the moment? Currently my primary objective is to keep my partner alive.”

“Currently.” Scott echoes, hollow. It seems like such a small goal for someone capable of what he’s seen already. In the distance, the city lights are slowly starting to blink back on. His stomach gets weird and twisted and acidic when he thinks about the long term goals of someone who shuts down an entire airport and its associated major metropolis in order to trap him in an airport bar. The thudding on the kitchen door continues. His gaze darts to J again, but he hasn’t moved.

“Were you thinking about hurting him?”

Scott can’t get over how sweet she sounds, how demure and darling and innocent. Even this question is posed with such an artful absence of guile that his initial impulse is to tell the truth. Yes. It had crossed his mind. Scott doesn’t usually like to be the guy who throws the first punch, but he doesn’t like being threatened, either. Sometimes you need to take a stand. He feels like his pulse is throbbing in his ears and very carefully he answers, “Well, I’m not thinking about it anymore.”

“I’m very glad to hear that, Steven. That’s a wise choice.”

“Right.” There’s definitely not a tremor in his voice. He’s calm. Certainly he’s not going to come unraveled as quickly as J is. “This, uh. This seems like a kind of an uneven partnership. You and him.” Even in spite of the bizarreness of the whole situation, he can’t help taking the opportunity for another shot at the older man, hopes to strike upon some more information, “—seems like you’re the one who does all the legwork, while he just fronts for you. Tech industry hotshot, huh?”

“You’ve no idea,” she answers, and there might just be a note of amusement in her voice. This softens and the colour of the light changes slightly, shades of pale, melancholy blue. “He needs me, though. He’s dying.”

Scott’s gaze goes back to the redhead, even as his head jerks up. It’s possible irritation flashes across his features as he protests, vehement, “I’m not _dying_.”

The strange circular clock face vanishes from the screens in every corner of the bar and instead a craggy, spiking line traces across it, rapid. The available screens divide themselves between this EKG and another set of readouts, tracing over the first. They divide again, scrolling through numbers and acronyms and assorted values and ratios, casting the room in red. Scott only sort of knows what he’s looking at, doesn’t entirely understand the significance, until he hones in on the heartbeat again, tries to compare it to the rhythm in his own chest. Even in a state of heightened adrenaline, he’s still nowhere near the frenetic doubletime he’s watching, the way J’s heart must be just about pounding out of his chest. Scott gnaws his lip, conflicted. He doesn’t like the guy. Or, anyway, he’s _trying_  not to, but there’s still a pang of sympathy, threatening his heretofore righteous ire. It’s hard not to pity a dying man, especially when he seems not to know he’s dying.

“Is he?” Scott asks, somewhere between hesitant and dubious.

“Compared to _me_ , you’re  _both_  dying.” Around the room, the white circle reappears, plunges the room back into cool darkness. For a moment, Scott wants to take this as proof that he’s talking to a  _child_ , but the whole idea is still a little bit too fantastical to get his head around. He’d used the term _wunderkind_ , hadn’t really meant the “ _kind”_  part of it to be  _literal_. “But this is a tangential line of thought and philosophically rather beyond either of your grasp. For the moment, he’s in no immediate danger, and we’re on our way to find some help. Let’s see if we can’t smooth this current situation over, somewhat. Consider any threats we’ve made to be retracted.”

Scott nods, and then, remembering himself, swallows and says, “Yeah. Uh, yeah. Okay.”

“Excellent.”

“What’re you doing?” J asks, lifting his head again. He’s not looking anywhere in particular, has that sort of blank stare about him again. Unconsciously his hand goes to the receiver in his ear, and Scott wonders if he’s been told something quiet and private, something not meant for strangers in airports. The way he gives a quick little nod and sighs seems to confirm this. “Okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay, please. Thanks. Thank you.”

The white halo goes catseye green. And then her voice is all around him again, coming from a multiplicity of speakers, giving her dulcet, soprano tones surprising magnitude as she says the name that isn’t his, “Steven.”

Scott’s not sure just when he pressed his back up against the wall, but it’s cool and smooth and makes him really  _feel_  the shiver down his spine. “I’m listening.”

Her voice drops back down into a single source, takes on a slightly confessional note, “I have the most dreadful instincts about people. This is, in fact, because I have no instincts at all. _His_ , though. His instincts are generally far more accurate. I console myself by considering them to be a rather robust set of subroutines. For whatever reason he’s gone and latched on to you, and I’m compelled to respect this fact. I’m sure you’ve perceived some of the double talk that’s run through the whole conversation—the insistent mentions of brotherhood, the fact that he says he doesn’t care about you, and not one breath later insists he wants to help you. I can help you, Mr. Summers. Let’s call it one big favour, one digital miracle of your choosing, free of charge or obligation. All we’d ask in return is your return to general indifference to our existence.”

“A favour?” Scott repeats, and hopes he doesn’t sound as dumb and completely poleaxed as he feels.

One more pulse of green, and then back to pure bright white. “A favour. Some six digit sum and the routing number for your bank account. Some whole new someone for you to be, better than this sad and  _shabby_ Steven Summers. Some petty and personal revenge, some havoc wreaked on someone’s life. I’ll tell you now I won’t kill anyone, but I _can_ make myself quite unpleasant, if I choose. Name your price.”

“Uhh…”

There’s a soft laugh. Slowly the lights in the bar start to come back up, the screens blink off one by one, then back on, various systems rebooting. Finally, somehow very near to his face, she whispers “I’ll let you think about it. Pass the word along when you’re ready.”

Normalcy fades back in. The door of the kitchen unlatches and the babushka comes barreling out, cursing a blue streak and with her face bright red, apoplectic. She goes immediately for the phone on the wall behind the bar and begins yell in it before she remembers to punch in a number.

Scott stumps across the room back to the booth, drops into it. A little numb, awkward, he kicks J lightly in the shin. He finds his voice and attempts some semblance of a conciliatory compliment, “Hell… _hell_ of a kid you got there.”

* * *

There’s a countdown clock in the left upper periphery of John’s field of vision. It’s counting down from seven minutes, thirty-six seconds. EOS has de-escalated the situation, but they’re still stuck in the same stalemate as before. Steven knows too much about them and they know next to nothing about him. EOS is still not ready to give up her silver bullet.

Seven minutes and thirty-six seconds, but two minutes of that are already gone.

So five minutes. Five more minutes and they will be safe. Five more minutes and they will have the power to torpedo this young man’s life, remove him as a threat.

John doesn’t know how he feels about that.

But in some ways it doesn’t matter how he feels, because he’s not the one in control here. EOS sits in judgment. She’s not going to take orders or be swayed by him.

A lot, he thinks, is riding on the timbre of Steven’s miracle.

But Steven doesn’t say anything further. Instead he rubs at the spot where his glasses have pinched a line into the bridge of his nose, then he turns and roots through his bag. A plastic water bottle, the 100ml mini-size ones they hand out on airplanes, rolls across the table.

“Blow,” says Steven.

“Excuse me?”

“Blow. Into it. Forced exhalation against a closed space. It should trigger your Valsalva reflex and slow your heart rate. Or pinch your nose like you’re equalizing pressure after a dive.” There’s a patient sort of authority to it. Like it’s an instruction he has given many times.

“Oh. Right.” He knew that.

“Call me crazy,” Steven glances over to the bar, where the barkeep is watching them very carefully now. “But I’m guessing it’s not the best thing for me if you keel over.”

John pinches his nostrils closed and exhales, feels the rapid thundering in his chest return to a reasonable 120bpm. Equilibrium restored and another 15 seconds gone.

Steven watches him flop back into the chair, massages his own injured shoulder. “Hell, man. Hell, this is crazy. Was she serious? About the favour?”

John nods.

“Who is she? What is she? Can she even do that?” He reads something on John’s face. “You want me to stop asking, don’t you?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Yeah, but I mean, are you her father?” Steven seems incapable of learning this lesson. “Is she your kid?”

“No,” And then again, “Yes.”

“How old is she?”

He doesn’t reply.

“She took out the whole damn power grid. She shouldn’t be able to  _do_ that. It only took me a fraction of a second to go for that alarm. Even if it was just pressing a big damn red button that’d be a quick reaction time, but it’s not. She’d have to shut down the main grid, the back-ups,” He’s talking more to himself now than to John. “I mean the runway’s going to have autologous power sources. Not to mention she had to route shut-down instructions to maybe forty individual planes, each on their own system. The counterterror mechanisms she would have to bypass alone… She did that in the time it took me to go eight feet. That shouldn’t be possible, man. It just shouldn’t. You’d need a super-computer. Not even, you’d need –”

It’s like watching a line of dominoes fall. Each thought clicks against the next and on and on until –

“Holy crap.”

John groans, trying to lean away even as Steven leans right over the table. “Are you serious? She’s an artificial intelligence?”

` I resent the term artificial. `

“She’s a multivalent digital entity.” Because there seems little point in denying it now, and in for a penny, in for a Parker, a Kayo, a Kyrano, a whole sordid intelligence system.

“She’s an _AI_ with the ability to nix the power to a city in the time it takes to sneeze. Jeez, no wonder you two are so terrified. How many international laws are you in violation of? The Treaty of Mastrict, the International Agreement on Cybersecurity, the World Council Ordinances, 2044, just for a start.” He rattles off statutes pertaining to the governance of AIs like they are the Yankees’ season batting statistics, like they’re the sort of thing you just drop into everyday conversation.

` He neglected the Interim Treaty of Lydon. An especially nasty document. `

“How would you know anything about that?” John’s starting to feel threatened again.

“Boy, it must be exhausting for you two, huh? Being the only two smart people in the whole world,” says Steven Summers, who got a C minus in Computer Graphics and switched out of Beginner’s Programming mid-term. “I read. I have friends who are passionate on the subject. Sometimes I proofread undergraduate dissertations for friends who are passionate on the subject. I was even there the day they executed Qbert.”

Qbert. It’s a name he hasn’t heard in a long time. If EOS is Beethoven’s _Ode to Joy_ , Qbert had been _Itsy, Bitsy Spider_ played on the kazoo. He was a learning intelligence, created by a couple of well-meaning post-docs out at Stanford. To this day, debates rage in the literature about whether he had even gained true sentience. Regardless, the World Council had taken no chances. Qbert had been exterminated and every trace of him erased. The handling of it and other AI seize and destroy orders had been a chapter in his doctoral thesis.

Maybe Steven was there that day. It doesn’t excuse him. There had been hordes of people there that day, calling for the intelligence’s destruction on grounds of religion, or doomsday or just plain fear. John had been there himself, among the feeble protest group that had tried to save Qbert. He had watched Professor Judy Matson sob as the AI’s component parts were taken away to be destroyed and she was taken into custody.

“That was ugly,” says Steven. “People screaming, ‘Skynet’, ‘Rise of the Machines’ blah, blah. As far as I can figure Qbert never hurt anyone.”

The silence that follows is a tacit admission that he thinks Qbert’s harmlessness is not a trait that EOS shares.

But something in his wording bugs John. “You said execute.”

“Huh?”

“You said they executed Qbert. You didn’t say delete. Most people say delete.”

“So what?”

“So, it’s imprecise terminology. Potentially confusing, in fact.”

The kid shrugs, looks uncomfortable. “Mark of respect. Debating what constitutes consciousness is above my pay grade, but I drove my… friend up to Stanford the day they did it. I’ve never seen him so broken up.”

“If they find her,” says John, “They’ll kill her.”

“I get that. Look I don’t really know about this sort of thing. If you want that you should ask… anyway, I can only go with what I think is true, and she seems alive to me.” He hesitates. “You seem alive to me, EOS.”

It’s either the truth, or a masterclass in manipulation and John’s not even a little sure which. His instincts – his robust set of subroutines – aren’t telling him anything at all right now. He’s just puzzled. The clock is still ticking down in the corner of his eye. There’s very little time left.

` I want to speak to him. `

John nods, rolls the sleeve of his jacket back, and places his wrist, adorned with communicator, on the table. Her voice pipes from the speakers.

“You seem sincere, Steven,” she says. “In my experience many people seem sincere. In my experience when it comes to humans, it’s choices that matter, not words. All I know of you are lies.  Oh, and that you know the statutes of my imprisonment very well, so don’t insult me by confirming to me what I already know to be true. Let us instead keep our business transactional. I have offered you one wish. What will it be?”

“Your digital miracle?”

“Yes.”

“And you can give me a new life?”

“Yes.”

He leans forward. “What sort of life would you give me?”

“That is entirely up to you. What sort of life have you dreamed of?”

Steven licks his lips, and under his bravado John can see he’s still scared. “That’s not what I asked. I asked what sort of life would _you_ give me?”

And the timer ticks to zero.

* * *

 

“What about,” she begins, her voice coy and impish and all but impossible not to attribute to someone with a pulse, “the sort of life that leads one to become a GDF Transit Marshal?”

Across the table, J’s eyes narrow slightly, but he doesn’t comment. His fingertips start to drum softly on the table, but there’s nothing metallic beneath them and no particular pattern to it. Just a vaguely nervous rhythm, possibly impatience. Scott ignores this and prompts, “Go on.”

EOS continues, soft and beguiling, “It makes more sense, I think. We’ll start with a rather more stable childhood. Supportive parents. Good grades. Sisters, I think. Two, one older, one younger, balanced you out. One to keep an eye on you, and one for you to keep an eye on. I like Oklahoma, something about the K appeals to me. Think about  _that_  for a while. Yours seems like the sort of brain that might be hungry for a little complex thought, just what it is I find so intriguing about the letter K.”

Geographically, she’s one state off from his reality and Scott has to wonder if she’s playing with him, or if it’s a question of coincidence. J’s watching him now, gauging his reactions. Maybe this is what he provides for EOS. That quintessentially human quality, that bridge between worlds. So maybe the AI can scan and process a facial expression, but she can’t possibly be able to pick up on all the little quirks and foibles of body language, all the little ways to read a person. Scott stays as still as possible, keeps his face neutral as he meets J’s scrutiny. “Yeah, all right.”

“Perhaps your ambitions were towards goodness and justice and putting the world right. Perhaps you believe that there’s a certain order to the world, and that it’s worth upholding. I think your very supportive parents were very supportive when you went off to college, I think your sisters were so very,  _very_ proud when you came out of it with your degree in criminal justice. On to the GDF. A very focused, very  _intent_  young man such as yourself is still too young to be fully qualified as a Marshal, but perhaps we fudge those numbers a bit. Perhaps you’re a baby-faced twenty-five.”

Scott scoffs at this, rubs his eyes and wonders if she’s trying to pay him a compliment, saying he could pass for older than he is. “Why a GDF Marshal?”

“We’re in an airport. There’s been a sudden destablization of security, I can work up a digital profile that would pass scrutiny, put you in a position of authority. Make it easy for you to commandeer a plane, make some excuse about security and transit. I’m not incorrect in the assessment that you’re a pilot?”

“How’d you—”

“Your passport has several international visas, specific to commercial pilots.”

Of course she’s aware of the contents of his passport. “In that case, yeah, I’m the best damn pilot you’ve ever seen.”

J’s the one who laughs at this and gives Scott a withering once over. “She thinks in petaflops. She’s moved through global data systems the world over, she’s perceived the world in ways you can’t imagine. You’re not the best damn _anything_  she’s ever seen.”

Scott flushes slightly at this, before answering back, “Best damn pilot  _you’ve_ ever seen, then.”

Another laugh and then it’s possible that there’s a melancholy cast to J’s expression. “I highly doubt that. But you remind me of the other person I know who’d say so. Difference is,  _he’d_ be right.”

Scott’s not about to get in a pissing war with some hypothetical (potentially fictitious) hotshot so he shrugs, presses on. “What the hell could you possibly gain by making me into a Marshal? You can’t—I mean,  _he_  said it, maybe you take a different view—but you can’t trust me with that kinda influence? The pair of you are fugitives. Who’s to say I don’t tip the GDF off to you as soon as you give me the right credentials?”

J shifts in his seat and if it’s Scott he’s supposed to be getting a read on, he’s forgotten himself. His expression has grown suspicious, knit a line of concern between his brows. EOS continues, “Perhaps you recall the details of the conversation you overheard initially. Perhaps you could imagine a reason why we might want to enlist the services of a qualified pilot with the necessary cover to get us clear of this airport.”

Before Scott can perk up, get curious about this idea, J’s hand slaps flat on the table. “No. Nope. Vetoed. EOS—”

Petulant now, ignoring Scott entirely. “I don’t  _like_ him. We’re better out of his company.”

“What the hell do you think you’re angling at? I’ve told you we can trust him. He’s our best shot at—” J’s eyes cut to Scott and then away again, as he catches himself, “—at fulfilling our objective.”

“Or,” she proposes, still bright and patient, “we enlist a new partner, a partner of our own choosing. Not one who sneaks up on you in Tokyo and scares you half to death, and then proposes to apprehend you and use you for his own ends. We come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“We _have_  a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“Not one where there’s a balance of power.”

“That’s not what—”

Scott’s abruptly aware that this is probably a side of these two that’s almost never seen. To hear both voices, the pair of them arguing—if they’re as deeply on the wrong side of the law as Scott’s already guessed, then she has to be such a carefully kept secret. Fascinated, and mostly interested to see how the game changes if he throws his own pieces into it, he pipes up, “I’d do it. Sure. Yeah, we could work something like that out.”

“See? Steven thinks it’s a good idea.”

J’s glaring daggers at him, but Scott only grins. “Steven’s going to keep his trap shut from this point forward, and won’t speak again ‘til spoken to.”

Ha. Fat chance. “Hey, fuck you, buddy. I’m talking to the computer.”

It’s him who bristles at this, while she laughs. Scott’s about to press for further details when J freezes in his seat, his gaze fixed on the door at the other end of the bar, leading to the stairs up to the concourse. “Too late. Vetoed.” He shoves his sleeve back down over his communicator, snatches up his possessions from the table in front of him, and with a quick, elegant twist on his heel, has moved into the next booth, back to Scott. His head drops and his shoulders hunch and Scott blinks, bewildered.

The door of the bar swings open—unlocked, but not reopened after EOS had sprung her little trap—and Scott turns, curious, to see a small, neatly attired man. Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, scanning the room. Scott has a funny feeling about him and looks away abruptly, even as the man crosses the small barroom in a series of short, brisk strides.

“Ah,” Scott hears him say, and watches furtively as the man stops just beside J’s table. His voice is low, musical, but non-urgent as he says, “There you are. If you’ve been drinking in your condition, I’m going to take you out back and wallop some sense into you. So instead, you’ll tell me you haven’t been drinking. Our flight’s been delayed indefinitely and we’re going to need to make a new plan. Here’s as good a place as any.”

The other man seats himself in the booth across from J, and for a moment, catches Scott staring. Golden-green, slightly hooded eyes peer at him for an uncomfortable few seconds before he returns his attention to his charge. J hasn’t said anything. The man continues, and must not realize who he’s talking to when he queries, “—you were always good with computers. I don’t suppose you can get into the airport’s registry and see if you can find us an unattached pilot?”

* * *

Some facts that EOS knows about Bhanji Kyrano

  1. That in his forty year career as a private mercenary he has consistently displayed a capacity for clinical and detached violence
  2. That he mistrusts technology and keeps much of his private and personal info as hard copy
  3. That he has multiple aliases, all seven of which she believed she had isolated, until he produced an eighth at security at Tokyo International Airport
  4. That he is Jeff Tracy’s loyal dog and therefore any loyalty to John is subsidiary
  5. That he is the full brother of the man who tried to kill John on more than three occasions  



EOS does not like Kyrano.

More accurately, she is afraid of Kyrano. 

But John trusts him, at least he trusts him in the way John trusts anyone now, in these days since her interminable imprisonment, since the bond between him and his brothers was breached, lightly and with one eye on the door.

Therefore, for now, she must deal with Kyrano.

And look for alternatives. She has been resistant to accepting outside help, assured that no one can care for John’s needs better than she can. But recent events had made her consider that outside help might have its place. Perhaps it would be useful if John were to acquire a loyal dog of his own. She swivels one of her eyes in the direction of Steven Summers.

He sits in his booth, running his finger around the rim of his glass and chewing on his lip. His gaze is fixed upon the back of John’s head. When he hears Kyrano’s question he rises and sits down in the booth next to John. “Are you looking to hire? My charter got delayed in Abu Dhabi. Customs. I can fly you anywhere you want to go. For a price.”

EOS runs Kyrano’s expression through three facial analysis software packages, gets no hits. John’s is much easier to read. It’s one of stupefied horror.

“And you are?”

Steven thinks for a moment. “John?” he queries.

“Hah,” says Kyrano. “No. Try again.”

“Neil then.”

“You look about 17.”

“I’m nearly 23.”

“Congratulations on reaching such a major milestone. If you are not yet 23 then you cannot have your APC licence, therefore you cannot fly a jet, therefore you cannot help us. Thank you for your interest.”

“There are special dispensations,” Steven retorts.

“Do you have such a dispensation?”

He grinds his teeth. “I can fly everything you throw at me.”

“You’ve been drinking.” It’s not a question. “You can’t fly anything.”

“If it’s just a standard up and down– ”

“You’ve been drinking. And I don’t deal with amateurs.”

Kyrano reaches into his pocket and removes a small silver pill box. Inside are half a dozen yellow lozenges. She identifies the substance as di-sulfram guanide, a substance on the semi-legal edge of the pharmacopeia. Its use is specifically forbidden by the International Rescue Manual of Operations, as well as most commercial airlines. Its object is to purge the body of 99% of ethanol in three minutes. Looking at the mechanism of action, the operative word is ‘purge’.

Steven seems to be able to identify it on sight too. He scowls. “I can– ”

“Get sober,” says Kyrano, “And then maybe we’ll talk.”

Steven takes a tablet and swallows. The next moment he lurches to his feet and runs up the stairs. EOS follows his progress as he rushes into the concourse. He snags a bottle of water from a concession stand without stopping to pay for it and runs into the men’s washroom. He collapses inside an empty stall just as the purgative takes effect.

This, at least, means his position and behaviour will be entirely predictable for several minutes.

Downstairs, Kyrano is grilling John on Steven’s identity, the presence of two shot glasses on the adjacent table, the meaning of the sourdough crumbs on the table’s surface and John’s lapel. But John’s heart rate is on the sixty-third centile and he does not seem distressed. This is probably because he is agreeing with Kyrano that his association with Steven is categorically at an end. She records the audio for later, leaving a scanning protocol active for only ten thousand or so keywords.

Meanwhile, she expands into the GDFTA’s central network. The time she can lurk there without attracting attention is limited. She has rendered three profiles, one for Jacob Gareth Teegarden, a cyber-securities expert with the TA special branch, another for Simon Jared Spellman, a promising junior marshal operating out of Moscow Branch. The third profile, for Stefan Johann Smythe, details a person of interest with a history of violence, anarchist leanings and connections to the terrorist groups Red Cloud and The Luddites. For now she doesn’t upload any of the profiles.

Instead she scours the network for potential threats. Before Steven’s mention of hard lines she had never given much consideration to physical solutions meant to circumvent her. Extrapolating threats and solutions for future digital attacks, yes. It had been one of the first problems she had turned her mind to during her imprisonment. Physical threats to John she equally spends much of her time predicting. But physical threats to herself she had not considered.

A survey of the hacker community produces speculation about the existence of hard lines, dark rooms lined in lead meant to imprison individuals with implantable cybernetics, and EMF generators. She searches the TA servers for mentions of these countermeasures but finds only the same reference again and again. “Refer to box 777.”

She considers the outcomes if John were to be hit with an EMP. Having considered them for an interminable 0.32 seconds, she places these outcomes in a secure data vault within her programming where she will not have consider them anymore.

If only she could take him somewhere safe.

In the airport, Steven has stumbled out of the stall and is rinsing his mouth out at the sink. “I suppose you think this is funny,” he says loudly.

She had not thought about it in those terms. But maybe it is. Ha. Ha.

He returns to the concourse and pays the irate concession holder for his water. He then lingers far too long by the sunscreen stand. When he turns to go, he bangs against it and bottles roll everywhere, out onto the main hallway.

“Sorry dude, sorry, sorry.” He backs away from the now furious vendor and straight into a passenger in rumpled suit and tie.

“Oh man, so sorry.” His accent thickens into the brogue of the American Midwest. The man snarls at him as he waves his hands, backing up. “Sorry, I don’t speak the lingo, man. Sorry, man.” Then he turns and walks in the opposite direction to the bar.

Every sensor she can muster is now trained on him, assessing this suspicious behaviour. Security cameras and smartphone feeds follow him as he marches into a high end electronics store.

He walks right up to the counter and attracts the attention of one of the young women working there. His smile, when she turns to him, shows forty per cent more teeth than he has displayed thus far. “ _Hey there, gorgeous,”_  he says, in Russian. “ _Can you help me? My boss’s Bluetooth just blew up, two minutes before we were supposed to board. If I don’t get a replacement, pronto, he’s going to have me thrown out a window. What’s the best you’ve got?”_

Smiling, she takes out an overpriced Bluetooth earpiece to show him, placing it on the glass counter. “ _You’re an angel,”_  he says. “ _Can I try it on? If it pinches his ear it’ll be my guts on a plate.”_   

“ _Of course,”_ The woman smiles back at him. Her pupils have dilated.

“T _hanks, Duchess.”_

He plugs the earpiece into his left ear and turns away from the counter. “Can you hear me?”

“Of course.”

“I need that digital miracle, now.”

“Do you?” She modulates her vocal parameters for sarcasm.

“Yeah, there’s a prepaid debit card in my wallet. I need you to top it up to 695 dollars.”

“695 dollars. I offered you riches, the chance to humiliate or destroy your enemies, a life lived in the sphere of your dreams and you want 695 dollars?”

“Uh, plus tax.”

“I’m a little offended by that.”

“Now, please.” He pulls the blue tooth from his ear and smiles again at the shop assistant. “ _No, not for me. I’ll take a Light Type wrist com and earpiece.”_

She tells the debit card to top itself to a thousand dollars as he presses it against the scanner.

“Huh, new model.” He’s already tearing the packaging off as he exits the store. He pulls the earpiece from the foam. “ _So,_ ” he says, in crisp Japanese. “ _How many security agents do you count? Because I make nine on this concourse.”_

He’s walking briskly now, but he makes no show of looking around. EOS expands her search parameters, using the same protocols she used to track him. The data her search returns is alarming. “Eleven.”

“Could be a coincidence.” He’s not very convincing. “Any chatter?”

“No.” The silence is terrifying.  

“Then not a coincidence. They’re instructed to switch to encrypted shortwave radio in a suspected cyberterror attack.”

“They’re after us.”

“Could be me too.” He sounds quite unconcerned by this turn of events. “You better tell Call-Me-J and his dangerous friend.” She already is, transmitting to John frantically as Steven asks her, “Any movement on the runway?”

“No, there’s a four minute traffic pause.” She reads data from the tower. “Bird strike.”

“That will be the troop carriers landing.” And his certainty given her lack of any corroborative data is alarming. He sighs but sounds rather pleased. “You know, I think we’re going to need to steal that plane after all.”

“There is a refuelled Air Teranean jet in berth…”

“No,” He grabs a navy baseball cap off a chair where a sleeping passenger has left it, stuffs it in his pocket. “Stealing a plane’s not like stealing a car. We can’t dump it in the lake afterwards. Those black boxes will survive a nuclear blast. Look at empty berths.”

“Yes.”

“See anything plane shaped?”

And there, in berth 74B, electrics, comms array, network signals. An aircraft, where there should not be one. “Yes.”

“This is Russia,” he says by way of explanation, “Smugglers and the mob can taxi right up to the gate.”

The p-comm fits snuggly onto his wrist. He powers it up. The Tracy Industries architecture is familiar to her as a favourite pillow to a cat. The OS begins its initial boot. She stops it, reformats the comm to an approximation of an IR wrist-device.“How did you know that?”

“My degree in criminal justice, remember? Gracie and Mary-Jane were so proud. Gracie baked me a carrot cake.”

“That was… smart,” says EOS grudgingly.

There’s something like a laugh in his voice. “EOS, are we going to be friends now?”

She pings his ear. It’s proving an effective form of reprimand. “I should tell you that being charming will not work on me.”

Steven grins. “Don’t be ridiculous, EOS. Being charming works on everybody.”

He ducks into the bar and takes the stairs two at a time.

* * *

Some facts that Kyrano knows about John Glenn Tracy:

  1. Categorically a genius.
  2.  The stupidest genius Kyrano’s ever met.
  3. Going to get himself killed if permitted to carry on the way he’s going.
  4. Hiding something. Probably hiding several somethings.
  5. Needs to see a doctor, and soon.



And, a recent addition

  1. White as a ghost and apparently about to be sick.



John’s gone shooting to his feet and clamped a hand to his ear. Kyrano had caught him wearing an earpiece, hadn’t had a chance to ask him about it. The younger man’s visibly alarmed, staring at the door at the bottom of the stairs, even before it bursts open and his dark-haired friend comes barreling through.

Kyrano’s between the two of them before “Neil” gets a chance to speak, but it’s John who talks first, rapid-fire and with a note of steel that Kyrano hasn’t heard from him yet. This alone is enough to make him stop, to make him listen. “She says—says the airport’s going into lock down. Agents on the concourse, troops landing on the runway. Do you know who?”

Facts about John Tracy:

  1. Refers to and is presumably in contact with a currently anonymous “she”.
  2. Has some means of insight into the onset of military operations in and around the airport.
  3. Knows more about “Neil” than he’s claimed to, so far.



“Don’t  _know_ who, got a few unpleasant guesses.”

“Why?”

“Your Girl Friday  _did_ blow the entire power grid. They’re gonna sweep the whole airport. You’ve got people after you? D’ _you_ know who this?”

  1. Associated with whoever blew the power grid.



John grimaces. “Haven’t kept track.”

There’s a muttered stream of cursing. “Oh, great. At least I _know_ who’s after  _me_ , J.  _Shit_.”

  11. Has given a minimum of his first initial, if not his entire name, to a stranger he met at an airport gate, not half an hour ago.

From behind the bar there’s a shout in irate Russian, the bartender who’s been glaring dourly at her former patrons ever since the lights came back on. Neil ignores this and turns back to the door, slams it shut, locks it. Seconds later, through the closed door comes the sound of warnings over the loudspeakers, all in Russian. Strict and stern tones ordering everyone to stay where they are, remain calm, and to comply with all given directives. The woman behind the counter goes several shades paler and sinks to the top of a stool behind the counter.

John’s fixed his gaze on the dark haired boy, though Kyrano remains poised between the pair of them. “She says there’s an exit through the kitchen. We can get to the runway. She says she’s found a plane.”

Neil holds up his wrist and shows off a comm to match John’s own, display flashing with a ring of rendered white lights that seems to mean something to John. “Yeah, ‘cuz I told her where to look. I, Robot’s got plenty of power, not a lot of savvy.”

“We have to—”

“Can she—”

  1. Has taken this far enough.



” _Children_ ,“ Kyrano thunders, employing a voice he last used when dealing with a horde of  _actual_ children, five rambunctious boys and his daughter, half the time the instigator of whatever mischief the Tracys got into. It shuts the both of them up immediately, draws them both to a strikingly similar sort of attention. He’s gone for the shoulder holster beneath his jacket, drawn a gun. John’s eyes widen at this, while Neil’s narrow. Appropriately, as Kyrano’s leveled the gun at his chest. "We’re leaving,” he says to John, over his shoulder. “Through the kitchen.”

John doesn’t move, his eyes cutting to the gun, then to Neil. “Don’t point that at him,” he says, though there’s not enough emphasis in it for it to have been an order. “Don’t  _shoot anybody_.” This has a bit more fire in it.

Kyrano has a two-handed grip on the Sig-Sauer he pulled out of his jacket, rock steady. He jerks his head towards the kitchen door, and barks, “ _Move_. Now.”

“He comes with us.” Sterner now, taking on the same steel as before, and standing his ground. “We need a pilot, you said we—”

“ _No_.”

Neil’s remained perfectly still, and continues to, with his hands displayed, palms out. “Hey, guy. It’s because _I_ know something I bet he hasn’t told  _you_ , and he doesn’t trust me not to spill my guts as soon as I get found—and I’m  _gonna_ get found, if you don’t let me tag along. What’m I gonna do? You’re the guy with the gun. Come on.” He looks up at John over Kyrano’s shoulder. “They’ll kill me, whatever they get outta me. I can’t promise I wouldn’t give your ghost up.”

It’s a stalemate, and there’s no time for stalemates. Kyrano lets the gun drop, glowers at Neil. “Go. You first, we’ll follow. You say you know where we can find the plane, you lead the way. You say you can fly anything, you’ll fly whatever we find, and you’ll fly it as dark as possible. No comms, no radar, bare minimum instrumentation. You fuck up, I put a bullet in your skull and take the helm.”

“Yessir.” Neil’s hands drop and he darts for the gap between the bar and the back wall, the door to the kitchen. He shoves the kitchen door open, peeks through, gives a thumbs up to indicate the all clear, and hangs in the doorway. Kyrano motions John to follow him, but as the redhead crosses the room and into the space behind the bar, there’s a sudden flash of movement from the barkeep. The old woman has fumbled a taser out from some hidden cubbyhole, taken advantage of the distraction between the three men in her bar, and John’s right in her line of fire as she starts to shout orders in Russian, broken bits of English slipping through, mostly curse words. She’s been threatened and she’s panicking, and Kyrano’s suddenly certain of the fact that there’s more than one old fool in the room. He’s not in good company.

Kyrano has forty years of experience as a mercenary. He’s about those same forty years the senior of the dark-haired boy, who moves with a burst of athletic ease, out from the doorway, and puts himself squarely in the path of two arcing contacts as the old woman screams and fires.

* * *

It’s over before John really knows it begins.

The woman shrieks at him and the taser rises to point at his chest.

EOS screams for him to move.

A dark shape comes vaulting over the bar and gets between him and the woman, then drops, crashes hard against the side of the bar and falls to the floor.

John’s first thought, incongruous, is that he misses his Blues. The flight suits are designed to diffuse and ground up to 500,000 volts. In his Blues, the taser would have been a pleasant tingle.

But Steven wouldn’t have known that. 

Which means he would still be on the floor, writhing, as every muscle group spasms out of control, as the electrical charge overrides his nervous system. He would still be emitting that low keening.

“John! JOHN!” EOS repeats his name into his ear. “Do something!”

It’s Kyrano who does something. He surges across the room and rips the taser from the woman’s hand, possibly – probably – breaking a couple of her fingers. He presses her against the bar, drills his gun against her cheek. “ _Do not make a sound, Madam,_ ” he says, in perfect Russian and turns to John. “We need to go.”

“We can’t leave him.”

“He can’t move.”

“He’s right,” says Steven. He groans and tries to sit up. His arms wobble, “Fuck a duck, that hurt.”

“He saved me.”

“And me,” EOS whispers.

John feels an icy grip around his heart. He hadn’t even given consideration to what would happen if the electrical charge had struck the pacemaker that contained her. He has to fight the urge to begin pulling up papers on the subject. Likely there will be none. It’s not as if Fischler had time for in vivo testing.

“Commendable. Also utterly pointless if you are still standing there when they come through the door.”

John helps Steven to stand. His movements are drunken and uncoordinated, and he leans heavily against John as he helps him into the booth. “Fuckity fuckbiscuits.” Steven wheezes. “He’s right. I’ll follow if I can.” He’s breathing hard. “Just need a minute. Catch my breath.”

“No.”

“Don’t be stupid.” He hears it in stereo, from Steven and Kyrano simultaneously, Steven aggrieved, Kyrano matter-of-fact.

“You need to go. Now,” Steven insists. “You know what happens if they catch…you.”

He grips the young man’s shoulder. “I said you could trust me.” Then he turns and walks to the bar.

Kyrano stlll has his gun to the barkeep’s throat. The woman is whispering Coptic prayers. “Let her go.”

“No.”

“Let her go. Now.” It takes that moment to place that voice. It’s his command voice. His IR voice. His ‘do not fuck with me, I’m Thunderbird Five and if you don’t do what I say you’re going to fucking die’ voice.

Kyrano raises an eyebrow. He lets the woman go.

 _“Madame Anna,”_ John says in his most formal, courteous Russian, using the name EOS supplies him. Unasked, she begins to plunder the woman’s history. “My deepest apologies. My  _byki_  is over-zealous. It’s true we are  _Bratva_ , but it was never our intention to startle or hurt you. Nor would we harm your grandson, Vassily.” He sees her stiffen. “He is your favourite is he not? You work here to help him with his gambling debts. Say the word and his debts can be forgotten.”

She swears under her breath.

“And your husband is Alexi, yes? I am sorry to hear of his cancer. Such things are very treatable now though. If you help us he will have the finest doctors and the finest hospitals, I swear.”

Her eyes fix on him, big and wide and brown like a spaniel’s. She is more shocked, more terrified at this then all of Kyrano’s violence.

“We are not bad men, Madame,” he says. “Please, help us. Help us help you.”

Seconds seem to drag by, and then the Madame nods. “For Vassily and for Alexi,” she says, “What do you want me to do?”

“Go to the door. Tell them it is jammed. Tell them you’ve complained to maintenance about this many times.”

She walks to the door. “Peter! Peter, is that you?” The trace of the quiver is gone. She is loud and bawdy and annoyed. “The damn door is stuck again. I have told you of this time and again!” And just like that it’s true, EOS logging records of her numerous calls to maintenance.

From the other side of the fire door there comes shouting, too faint to make out.

“Thank you, Madame,” he says gravely. “Now if you would be so good as to go to the kitchen and cook us another batch of your delicious  _vareniki_?”

“What are you playing at?” asks Kyrano as Madame Anna stalks past him into the kitchen with a huff worthy of any Grand Duchess.

“They outnumber us. They have – they might have troops swarming over the runway now. We can’t get out that way.”

“Do you have an alternative plan?”

“Yes. Can you make a White Russian?”

Kyrano considers this for a long moment, then nods. “I can make a Whiskey Sour,” Before a moment has passed he has stowed his gun and found an apron behind the counter. He wraps it around his waist.

John walks back to the booth, where Steven is still slumped, trying to right himself.

John fills a shot glass to the brim with vodka.

“Hey,” Steven reaches a shaking hand out to try and stop him. “Slow down there. You’re going to need a clear head.”

“It’s not for me.” He sticks the shot glass under his nose. “Drink.”

Steven goggles. “Are you kidding? Best case scenario, in about five minutes I’m going to have to fly you out of here, complete nav black out, through a sky full of murderous GDF birds.”

John shrugs. “You say you’re the best pilot I’ve ever seen? Well the best pilot I’ve ever seen flew instrument blind, through a class four hurricane after spending the preceding five hours downing sake with the head of a Japanese multinational.”

The kid rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s that hare-brained.”

“Saved eight lives.” It had been in their first year of operation. Dad had nearly disowned Scott, put IR out of commission for three months, recalled John from space and put all five of them back through basic training.

“I don’t believe you,” says Steven, but he drinks the shot.

John looks around. “Hey,” he calls to Kyrano, “He’s been drinking again. He’s going to need another of your little yellow pills.”

Steven glowers, as understanding dawns. “You’re a rat bastard, you know that? I practically took a bullet for you just now.”

“Yeah, thanks,” says John, filling the other shot glass. “Good job. Have another.” EOS giggles.

Steven half spills this glass because by the time it’s on the way to his lips John is already jostling his elbow, trying to pull at his tacky red sweater. “Hey, what the hell?”

“Strip.” John’s already removing his immaculately tailored, 600 dollar jacket. “Put this on.”

They’re alike enough in size that it fits Steven like it was made for him. It’s an improvement, definitely. Hopefully, no one will notice the jeans.

John tries to twist his hair – what little of it there is – into a mini quiff. Steven bats him away. “Dude! Personal space. Respect!” The alcohol has already taken effect, enough to make him bright eyed and fidgety.

“Just sit there.” He hands Kyrano’s yellow troche to Steven. “Put this under your tongue but don’t swallow it yet. You’re rich and drunk and dumb, understand?”

There’s a flash of a grin across Steven’s face, there and gone like a lightning strike. “Hah.”

“By dumb I mean, you don’t talk.” John snatches off Steven’s earpiece, then his own. “Follow my lead.”

When the airport security brings its battering ram to take down the door minutes later, they find that it has mysteriously swung open. They swarm inside, securing the corners and are greeted by two exceptionally drunk  _Americans_ giggling and yelling in one of the booths.

The redheaded one with the ridiculous piercings lurches to his feet when the agents enter. “Comrades, nostrovia!” He salutes them, and spills more of his glass than he drinks. The other one is in a sort of mumbling stupor and only moans when his friend kicks him awake. “Stevo, wake up.”

“Took you long enough,” The dapper little man behind the bar looks up from peeling a ribbon of orange skin. “My wife called security twenty minutes ago. She’s furious. Please eject these two.”

The security agents secure the two drunks. A moment later, a very tall, very beautiful woman with ice blonde hair caught up in a severe chignon enters. She wears a GDF uniform and a sergeant’s stripes. She’s flanked by three servicemen. “IDs,” she barks.

John makes a point of taking a long time to locate his,  kicks Steven awake. “Stevo. STEVO!” Finally he hands the two passports over. They’re scrutinised and then run through the scanner.

“Joseph Trenton?”

“That’s me, officer.”

“And your brother, Steven Trenton.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Where are you two coming from?”

John channels every unpleasant rich boy he’s ever had to eat brunch with. “Tokyo. We spent a week at the Ritz,” John gives her his most bilious smile. “We hover-skied down the side of Mount Fuji.  Ate waingu beef and pufferfish. Sampled the local wildlife.”

“Going to?”

“Daddy’s penthouse in L.A. For the clubbing.”

“You boys been drinking?”

“Just a little, officer. Stevo’s a nervous flyer. Aren’t you, Stevo? Care to join us? Are we?” he hiccups a laugh, “Are we in trouble? Hey Stevo, they think we’re in trouble.”

The sergeant’s lips curl and she turns to her men, who are searching their belongings.

John’s distracted by Steven’s leg bumping against his own. At first he thinks it’s just a delayed spasm from the taser, but then it happens again.

Short. Short. Short. Long. Long. Long. Short. Short. Short.

_Dot. Dot. Dot. Dash. Dash. Dash. Dot. Dot. Dot._

_S-O-S_

Steven’s eyes flick quickly left, looking while pretending not to look. Careful, John follows suit.

A young man has stepped into the room in the sergeant’s shadow. He is compact, not much taller than Kyrano, and trim, age about 25. His golden curls are somewhat cherubic, but his suit is impeccably tailored, three piece, a midnight blue so deep it could be black. A purple pocket square, adorned by bright yellow daffodils lies against his breast and he has a daffodil tie pin. He wears a pair of tortoiseshell horn-rimmed glasses, which – John feels suddenly certain – contain HUDs. He surveys the room through them with mild interest.

John doesn’t know why his stomach drops, but it does.

EOS tries a search, but the only result she returns is:

` _Jonquil, G._ `

` _CLASSIFIED_ `

She tries again and gets the same result.

` _CLASSIFIED. CLASSIFIED. CLASSIFIED_ `

It’s classifieds all the way down.

John gives Steven a hard kick beneath the table.

Steven doesn’t react, but slowly begins to tap out another message on John’s leg

_S-P-E-C-T-_

The Sergeant rounds on them again. “I think you boys better come to security for a little while just –”

That’s when Steven begins to vomit again.

John makes no effort to hide his laughter. “Oh, Stevo! I’m so sorry, officer. It must have been the waingu beef. Ha. Ha-ha.”

Steven braces himself against his knees and the sergeant has to jump back to avoid getting splashed on her shiny, regulation boots.

“Just go,” she says, “Get him some help. Get him out of my sight.”

“Come on, Stevo. Mummy would be so embarrassed.” He pulls Steven to his feet and drags him towards the stairs. At the foot of the steps, Steven retches again. “Just a little further. Good man.” Somehow, miraculously, they’re almost clear.

“Just one moment,” says a cool voice.

* * *

Gerard C. Jonquil is a man for whom reputation is not a precedent, but rather an inevitability.  People tend to wonder, after all, just what happens in the shadows.  Stories begin to surface sooner or later.  No matter how many clearance levels or special IDs or biometric scanners get put between him and the public, there will always be someone telling the stories about what happens in the dark.  Usually these stories are untrue, but that is less important than one might think.  When it comes to the legend of Agent Jonquil, truth doesn’t much matter, so long as the lies get him what he wants.

He pops a cigarette from the box, feels the coarse cardboard slip against the pads of his fingers as he gives the end two taps.  It fits easy between his lips, rolling smooth from the righthand corner of his mouth to the point in the center.  If he were the type of man to rummage through his pockets, now might be the appropriate time to do so, but that is simply not the case.  He knows precisely where his matchbook is—tucked between silk and cashmere—and he snaps a stick from the bunch, feels the scratch of each individual grit as he strikes the match into flame.  Heat curls its way through the lines in his finger tips.  Smoke lands in his throat.  He shakes away the flame.

They say they’re brothers, but the air between them is saturated with too much tension and not enough years.  Gerard has brothers of his own, and he knows all too well what it feels like.  These two aren’t brothers.  If this were an ordinary night at an ordinary bar, Gerard might even begin to wonder exactly why an older man is in the company of someone so much younger, but this night is far from the norm.  These two are accomplices of some sort.  Friends, possibly.  Step-brothers,  _maybe_.  Nothing about them feels quite right.

He stands, tilting the room off it’s axis.  He pauses, lets the atmosphere build itself up again. “Have a seat,” he finally says, pointing a cigarette at the nearby booth.  Smoke curls up and around his arm and he takes another drag.  “Let’s talk.”

The redhead—Joseph, he calls himself—is the older brother, which Gerard knows not by pulling up passports or IDs, but instead by the way his foot crosses in front of Steven’s.  Gerard is reminded of the daffodils.  How they stand tall against those icy spring mornings. “There’s been some sort of mistake—”

“Unlikely,” says Gerard.  He slides his free hand into his pocket, feels the fabric glide along his wrist.  “Please.  I insist.“

“We really—”

“I want to make it perfectly clear that either you sit in this booth voluntarily, or I’ll put you there myself, Mr…”

“Trenton.”

“Right.”

Joseph Trenton doesn’t miss a beat, and any agent worth his weight in bullets knows that the first sign of a lie is when there are no signs at all.  Even in the truth, there are nervous ticks.  A flip of the breath.  A series of um, ah, uh.  Joseph’s words do not belong to the truth, they belong to a script, and he’s been rehearsing them in his head for months.

Still.  It’s not a bad script.  And really, Joseph has every right to be as confident as he is, because his story is airtight.  He’s supported by transcripts, bank accounts, years of substantial financial transactions—school payments, car payments, a failed startup here and there—all in the name of Joseph G. Trenton.  Steven’s the same way, less work history, more student clubs, even a letter of recommendation from his AP Calc teacher.  These stories don’t just hold up against his scrutiny, they’d hold up against a full GDF investigation, so yeah.  Trenton’s earned the confidence.  Maybe he’s even earned the cockiness.

Except.

And this is exactly it.  This is the thing that makes Agent Gerard Jonquil one of SPECTRUM’s best assets.  He doesn’t see the world, he feels it—in his shoulders, in his chest, in the hairs along the back of his neck.  He doesn’t waste time trying to spot a flaw in the files, because he knows when the people in front of him don’t fit the peg hole.  He feels the exceptions of the world, and these two break the mold.  It’s instinct.  It’s effective.  It’s a god damn  _gift_.

The narcissus pin burns against his Gerard’s chest.  

Joseph leads, Steven close behind.  The two of them move as if they’ve got a string tying them together at their centers.  Gerard is noticing a pattern in the way that Joseph sits first, then Steven.  Noted.

“Sergeant,” says Gerard, taking a final stab at that cigarette.  “Give us a moment?”

“Fat chance, Jonquil.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he says.  “Perhaps I wasn’t clear.  Maybe we should call the boss—see what he thinks.”

The Sergeant has a kind of glare that stings.  It’s a beat, two, before she yields.  She says nothing, instead jerks her head towards the way they came in, and her men follow.  He raises his eyebrows at her and she’s one move away from spitting on him.  When she passes, he whispers in her ear, “See you tonight?”

She shoves his shoulder as she passes.  Hard.  “Bite me.”

Oh, he plans on it.

And then there were three.  Gerard flicks his cigarette to the floor, stomps on it, twists.  “You seem to have sobered up quickly,” he says.

Joseph doesn’t look up, spends his time adjusting his sleeves like he’s got some place better to be.  “You remind me of someone I know,” he says.  “And it’s never done me much good to treat him like an idiot.”

Gerard laughs, slow, methodical, as he takes a seat on the opposite side of the table. “I assure you, you’ve never met anyone like me before,” he says.  “But your honesty is appreciated.  Makes this easier for both of us.”

“And what is  _this_ , exactly?” asks Joseph.  “Who are you, and how do you have the authority to order a Sergeant out of the room?”

“Are you really in a position to ask me who I am, Mr. Trenton?” he says, looking over his glasses.  He turns to Steven.  “And what about you?  Are you planning to actually say anything, or are you just going to sit there tapping out the word  _SPECTRUM_  until your fingers fall off?”

Steven freezes.  Stares.  He’s been tapping the underside of the table since he sat down, frantic.  Quick.  It bleeds through the wood all the way to the other side of the table and Gerard feels it in his forearm. Steven throws his hand up, leans back in his seat.  “Christ, does  _everyone_ know morse code here?  Is there some sort of Russian initiative I don’t know about—?”

“My father made me learn,” Gerard tells him.  “Hated it.  Thought it was useless.  Anyways, you’re right.  SPECTRUM.  You’re more impressive than you look,  _Stevo_.”  

Joseph’s eyes are shaking left to right, a mile a minute.  They’re minuscule, contained movements, characteristic of a liar, but Gerard knows that he’s probably just reading, and he’s almost impressed that Joseph’s found any literature on the subject.  “I’ll save you the trouble of reading through whatever you have pulled up on your HUD—contacts, right?  Clever.”  He leans forward, waits for the two of them to lean back.  Steven does.  Joseph doesn’t.  “You’re soldiers, right?  Both of you.”

It’s written all over them, spelled out in Steven’s short hair and in all the piercings that poke at Joseph’s face.  Joseph’s a vet—doesn’t serve anymore.  Steven’s harder to pin down.  Deserter, maybe.  War crime, more probably.  

“So you know what it means, to serve a purpose greater than yourself,” says Gerard.  “We have that much in common, you and I, and I get the feeling our causes are the same, too.”

Steven’s tapping his foot, but it’s not morse code this time.  His anxiety is a ragged ribbon that wraps around the room, ties knots around anything it can reach.  “Truth, freedom and one world,” he says.

“So you’ve heard this spiel before.  Good.  I won’t waste your time.  Let’s cut straight to the offer.”

“Offer?” says Joseph.  “Now, Mr. Jonquil.  I thought we were being honest with one another.”

Gerard grins.  “Alright,” he says.  “Threat, then.  The way I see it, you can come with me and I drop a good word to the Sergeant, or we can see just how well your identities hold up beneath the eye of a GDF board.”

Joseph grins.  “I happen to think our identities would hold up rather well beneath the eye of a GDF board.”

“That’s another thing,” says Gerard.  “Who did these for you?  They’re impeccable.  Might do me some good to have this contact.”

“Friend of mine,” says Joseph.  “Not a fan of people she doesn’t know—I wouldn’t count on that contact.  Does this mean we can go, if you have nothing to threaten us with?”

“Your mothers are dead.”

Daffodils don’t wilt when winter tramples spring, but they do freeze.  They do droop beneath the weight of snow.  Both Joseph and Steven have ice on their shoulders and Gerard knows that his storm has hit.  “At least, I assume it’s your mother.  Steven, definitely.  You’ve been without your mother for years—you’ve got rigid edges like no one else I’ve ever seen, but  _you_.”  He looks at Joseph.  “You’re harder to place.  Your loss is more recent—but then again, maybe not.  Maybe you’re just fucked up.”

“What’s your point?” snaps Steven.

“My point is that you’ve got emotions, boys.  Everyone has these pesky little feelings that play larger roles in their lives—love leads to affairs, fear leads to impromptu spending, dead mothers lead to low grades and withdrawal.  Your identities look real good on paper, but all it takes is someone—someone like me—to point out how clean they are.  How dead they are.  Your  _friend_ is real good at the technical aspects, but when it comes to emotion, she’s clueless.”

“That’s not going to hold up in court,” says Joseph.  “It doesn’t _feel_ right?  That’s your best defense?”

“Of course not.  My best defense is that a person didn’t forge your identities,” he says.  “And I’m wondering what kind of questions the GDF would start asking if I threw the words  _Artificial Intelligence_  into the equation.”

Joseph’s jaw sets.  Steven looks up at the redhead.  The space between one side of the table and the other is dense, and it sinks straight to the floor.  Gerard gets all caught up in a swarm of satisfaction.

“I see,” says Joseph.  “Well, there’s something you haven’t considered.”

“Oh?” he says, wholly pleased with himself.  “Enlighten me.”

Joseph has his hand around Gerard’s tie before he’s even sure of what’s happening.  There’s a pull, silk sliding through his collar, and the narcissus pin pops right off, flying across the room.  His head smacks into wood, forehead splintering with pain as his vision fills with heavy dark spots.  He comes to just in time to hear Joseph say, “ _Go_!” 

* * *

How nice it must be, to have a cause.

Because J makes it look easy, he really does; just giving in to that sudden, all-consuming impulse towards violence. Bouncing the cranium of a guy off the top of a bar table, like it’s nothing at all, like it’s not an act with  _consequences_ . Like he doesn’t think about how this particular cranium belongs to an implacable man-in-black, with a cause of his own. Like he doesn’t think about concussion, the way a person’s brain sloshes and slams back and forth in their skull. Like he doesn’t think about the very idea of inflicting pain, causing harm. Scott wonders if there’d been that deep, automatic cringe of empathy inside J. Of the; “ _oh_  that’s gotta  _hurt_ ” variety.

Only probably not, because in the few moments of staggering, pole-axed semi-consciousness, the redhead’s planted a hand on the back of Jonquil’s skull, and leveraged his weight, shoved his height upward, pinning the SPECTRUM agent to the table with a clenched fist of golden blond hair.

Scott’s not been frozen through all this careful unraveling of philosophy, he’s already scrambled out of the booth. _Go!_ —but with no idea where he’s going. He practically runs into the third member of the game (Player 3? Player 4?), circling out from behind the bar, brushing briskly past Scott to seize hold of Jonquil, yanking him bodily off the table to sprawl on the floor, still dazed but rapidly recovering. Scott watches him recover enough that his eyes come back into focus, and stare down the barrel of a gun, leveled at his face.

The small, dark man says, “ _Stay_.”

And J says, “Shoot him.”

And somehow Scott just  _knows_  J doesn’t know what that actually means.

The order falls through dead air, and it’s ludicrous, and sharing a glance with the man with the gun for the first time, Scott knows it’s not going to be acted upon. Never mind that even a silenced gunshot will reverberate around the closed space like a cannon, never mind that there are GDF right outside the door, and a civilian witness holed up in the kitchen. Never mind the _only_  important thing Scott’s learned about J is that he’s got a secret so big and and so powerful that he thinks he’d  _kill_ to keep it.

In the middle of flat silence, Jonquil starts to laugh. There’s no hysterical edge to it, no edge of madness or psychosis. Just pure, genuine amusement, sat on his ass with his hands very carefully on the floor behind him, not about to do anything stupid; but equal with two out of three of the other men in the room; perfectly aware that he’s not about to be shot in cold blood.

It’s almost impossible to tell who’s in charge of the room, but in Scott’s experience, generally speaking, it’s safe to bet on the man with the gun. Appropriately, when he speaks, his voice quiet and deadly and neutral. “In front of him,” he says, and gestures towards Agent Jonquil, “you will call me ‘Ben’. And you will never,  _ever_  presume to give me an order like that again.”

J doesn’t answer. Scott thinks it’s possible that his brain is catching up to what he’d just said, because he swallows, hard, and sits down. He’s still clutching his bag and he starts to rummage through it, fishing out his earpiece again and cramming it into his ear. His expression goes blank, still, and Scott wonders what the hell he’s being told.

“You,” Ben summons Scott’s attention with tones that are crisp, military. “I need you to search the agent. He’ll have a gun, more probably two. Take the magazines out of both. Take his glasses. If you feel him move at all, get away from him immediately. Don’t talk to him.”

“You’re mean,” Jonquil pipes up, still grinning up at Ben, even as Scott approaches and pulls the glasses off his face, pockets them on impulse. His forehead is red, bruising from the impact . “You’re just really  _mean_ , Uncle Ben, I was just trying to make some friends. Can’t a few guys meet up in a bar, have a few drinks, get to talking? ‘Bout life, 'bout what’s important, 'bout which one of them got their hands on the Artificial Intelligence that SPECTRUM’s been after for the past few years? It is a  _nasty one_. Been waiting for it to trip up again, you know. Waiting for it to cause a big enough mess that there’s only one possible perpetrator. It’s my lucky day, you know. Right place, right time.”

Scott finds a Glock holstered beneath Jonquil’s jacket, a smaller pistol strapped to his ankle. The floral motif gets picked up again, sutbly patterns the man’s black socks. It takes Scott a while to find the knife, and he only finds it because it seems like there has to be one; cleverly concealed in Jonquil’s belt buckle. These are all placed up on the bar top. He finds a pack of cigarettes, a book of matches. Against Ben’s orders, he can’t help a comment, “These’ll kill you, y'know.”

“Yes, but I get very stressed,” Jonquil fires right back, still with that jackal grin. “Who’re you, squirt? Seems like you’re out of your league.”

Scott shuts back up, pulls out a glossy black slice of a phone, completely devoid of buttons, unresponsive to touch. He moves to Jonquil’s pockets for keys. A wallet, though Scott’s sure it contains absolutely nothing of substance. A little brass pillbox that seems to merit extremely careful handling.

“Just aspirin,” Jonquil tells him, gleeful. “Pop a couple, head off that hangover.”

Prudence has Scott give the agent another quick once over, brisk but careful, and then he steps away, with a nod to Ben. Wary, he moves over to the booth, stands next to J. “You all right?” he asks, noticing trembling hands and imagining a thundering heartbeat.

“Fine,” J answers, but his tone is empty, robotic. He’s got his own earpiece back in place, is turning Scott’s over and over in his fingers. He seems to remember, and hands it over. “Here. She’s…says she wants to talk to him. I don’t know what to do next.”

* * *

Ignorance.

John is swimming in it.

More to the point, he’s drowning in it. It’s like a tar pit, sucking him under, filling his lungs with awful black bitumen.

EOS races through digital mazes, into vaults and palaces. She circumvents firewalls, burrows through amorphous security measures, and finds…

Nothing.

_Nothing._

She solves 900 digit encryption keys only for the lock to be changed at the last picosecond. She locates digital depositaries only for petabytes of data to be deleted instantaneously. She tears through backups of backups of backups only to find any pertinent information completely redacted. EOS doesn’t know what’s happening, and neither does he.

Even when they had nothing they had knowledge, they had the assurance that between the two of them they were the smartest person in the room. Right now he’s not even sure he makes it into the top three.

 _“There’s no such thing as a universal genius, Johnny.”_ Dad had said that, once, a long time ago, after a training simulation had blown up in his face, leading to the ‘deaths’ of his entire team.

In the days afterwards, John had repeated that mission dozens of times, obsessed with fixing his mistake. He had made small increments over time but always managed to end up leading his team to certain death. Eventually, he had found and patched the bug that made the sim unwinnable, and demonstrated to his father a perfect score. Now he thinks that maybe he missed what his father was really trying to teach him.

_You’re only one change in circumstances away from looking like a fool._

“I wish to talk to him. We require more data. The more we obtain, the less tenuous our position becomes. He cannot hurt me.”

“We should kill him.” But he says it without conviction. As the adrenalin rush ebbs too many variables start to factor into it. Who would do it? How? What consequences would they have to prepare for? If he had a little time to think about it… If he could just go and sit down in a dark room for a while, away from all this madness, he could work it out. Maybe EOS would know. There has to be an algorithm that calculates the cost and opportunity cost of taking a human life.

Steven’s hand falls onto John’s forearm, clasps around the pale blue sleeve of his tailored Borelli shirt. He speaks softly, but with a weight of authority that surprises John. “We’re not doing that. Put it out of your head, man.” He lets go. “And we’re not going to let her talk to him either.”

John laughs, a sharp bark coloured with a lick of hysteria. “Like you could _let_ her do anything.”

Steven clips his own earpiece back in. “Your friend Ben is right. We tell him nothing. We don’t talk to him. We don’t let him talk to us. You can’t imagine how dangerous this guy is. You know nothing about these people.”

“Exactly,” say EOS and John simultaneously.

Steven frowns and for a moment John allows himself to dwell on how Steven seems to know more about SPECTRUM than he should, how he had identified Jonquil as a threat almost the moment he walked into the room.

“He knows about her,” says John.

“He only knows what you tell him. He’s bluffing, fishing.”

“I knew all about you two, didn’t I?” Jonquil’s halfway across the room, and they speak in low voices, faces turned away, but he hears them anyway.  

“You’re a scam artist,” Steven snaps, much louder than he needs to. “’Your mother is dead,  _Stevo.’_ Puh-lease. A nine year old with an undergraduate psych text book could figure out my mom was dead.” He falls back against the booth, scowling, as if he knows he’s said too much.

And that shark’s grin just gets wider. “The lady wants to talk, I say let her talk.”

“I say we lock him in the deep freeze,” Steven brightens. “I bet that sergeant will enjoy letting him out of there. Eventually.”

“Enough.” Kyrano calls them all to order. “We’re going. Now. All of us. Neil?”

“That’s still you,” EOS whispers to Steven through their shared channel.

“Oh. Yeah?”

“Get him up.”

“Don’t you want to hear my deal first?”  Jonquil’s voice is slippery as an eel. “It will be to your advantage.”

All of them look to Kyrano. He comes around to face Jonquil, gazes at him thoughtfully. “Speak. Be explicit and concise.”

Jonquil’s fingers play a concerto across the linoleum. “Like I said, gramps. Just my lucky day. You two are the exotic leopards that wandered into my fox trap. Probably you’re more trouble than you’re worth. Probably, I’d be prepared to let you go free, if you treat me real nice. My actual beat,” he says, without being prompted, “Is to run down a fugitive. A smuggler and wannabe gangster, works for one of our most wanted.  Maybe you’ve heard of his boss, a cat named Belah Gaat?”

Steven’s gone rigid through all this, but Jonquil’s earthy chuckle is not directed at him. “Why, Uncle Ben. So you’re not made of granite after all. That’s _so_  interesting.”

“Keep talking.” John can’t detect any change in Kyrano’s voice, in his demeanour. The barrel of his gun is absolutely still.

“This smuggler kid worked for Gaat, ferrying stolen goods cross border. He ran across one of our agents in Algiers, stole something that was very, very precious. It’s my job to recover it.” He flicks a spilled peppercorn across the floor with thumb and forefinger. “Well, I say stole. Actually, he murdered her in cold blood, then plundered her corpse.”

Steven’s rapid intake of breath is like a rifle fire report. It shudders through him like he’s been tazed again.

“Took a chip,” Jonquil pinches another peppercorn between his fingers “Tiny. We need it back before it falls into the wrong hands. His boss, for example.”

“So you want this chip?” says Kyrano.

“And the smuggler. Brass in Human Resources are quite excited about him. They say they like the look of his brain. Say it’s  _malleable_.” He glances up at the booth, where Steven stands frozen. That smarm of a grin returns. “Do you know what malleable means, Stevo? It’s headshrink talk for biddable. And _stupid_.”

“So,” says Kyrano. “You get this chip, you get the…smuggler and we walk?”

No one looks at Steven.

Jonquil shrugs. “If Archie over there gives me seven minutes in heaven with his Veronica.” His expression is unconcerned, sunny as a clear day back home. “What do you think, champ? What’s she worth to you?”

“I want to talk to him,” says EOS. “Let me.”

John moves, but Steven’s hand shoots out and grabs him again. He’s chalk white. “You’re not in control here, J,” he says.

Control. What a brittle illusion. But the kid’s young.

From his bag John takes his spare earpiece, and when Kyrano gives a curt nod, he slides the device across the floor so it nestles between Jonquil’s crossed legs. With the care of someone defusing a bomb, he tucks it into his ear. “And what should I call you?”

“My name is EOS.” She’s patched John into the feed.

“Hmm. Is that an OS designation? Or do you really fancy yourself a goddess? Do you even know yourself? Probably you don’t care, right?” He laughs. “No, I bet that’s all him. He’s the one asking ‘what are you?’, ‘where’d you come from?’, ‘who made you?’, ‘what’s wrong with you?’ Am I right? Yeah, he looks the type.”

“You cannot anger me,” says EOS.

“Perish the thought. I’ve seen what happens when you get angry.”

“I do not get angry,” she says, flat and childlike.

“’Course not.” His tones are soothing, like he’s talking to the small child she sounds like she is. “No way. What I wanted to talk about was more along the lines of a prediction. See if you can’t get that big beautiful brain to confirm it for me?”

“What is it?”

“I predict, you’re going to come with me. Now, tonight.”

“I won’t. You cannot make me.”

“Who’s making you? Not me. You’re going to come voluntarily.”

“Why?”

“What else you going to do?” The peppercorn rolls into a crack between the bottom of the booth and the floor. “He’s dying, right?” His voice is oiled silk. “Won’t last long. What are you going to do then? Tag along with Jughead? The old man? What a scintillating time that’s going to be for you.  Come with me and I can keep you out of the hands of those mouth-breathing monkeys at the GDF. I can give you home, purpose, security. All the things he promised you. All the things he tried _so hard_  to provide, but couldn’t. Poor thing, I bet he meant so well.”

“He protected me,” said EOS.

“Oh yeah, he did a bang up job there. You’re too precious, too brilliant, too special to be playing nursemaid to one limping, past-his-expiry-date human. You need someone to look after him for you, put him somewhere safe, get him better for you. We can help there.”

“No,” says EOS. “No, you are not to be trusted.”

“So you won’t come?”

“Not with you.”

“Not even,” He raises his gaze to meet John’s. His eyes are a tiger’s eyes, predatory and amused. He winks. “To meet your brothers and sister?”

Either she doesn’t reply, or she mutes John’s feed. All he can hear is staticky silence. Then Steven catches him again, by the shirt front this time. He drags him out of the booth. “Stop this. Now.”

“Oh,” sighs Jonquil, wistful. “You didn’t think you were the only one of your kind, did you? What a lonely existence. I’ll take you to meet them. They were a bit reluctant to join us too. Once. But you know, a tweak of programming there, a wipe here, and now they’re overjoyed to serve the cause.”

Suddenly, from every speaker in the room comes a burst of high pitched feedback, loud enough to make John’s teeth chatter, to make his ear drums feel like they will burst. EOS is screaming. John clamps his hands to his ears.

And Steven leaps forward and drives his knee, hard, into Jonquil’s face.

Kyrano shoots out three of the speakers. Silence washes back like the tide.

“EOS? EOS?” He’s practically screaming himself. But there’s only static.

Jonquil lies on the floor. He gazes up at them with the most unsettling sort of expression. “Don’t worry about your boys, EOS,” he smiles through bloody teeth. “We know just how to tweak them too.”

That’s when the window shatters and orange smoke begins to fill the room.

And John has enough time to think  _now I’m really drowning,_ before everything goes black.


	4. One Finds Oneself in a Windowless Room

_The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name._

_—Confucius_  

* * *

 

It’s the quintessential Back Room, and it usually belongs to the most malicious aircraft travelers that the TSA has to offer.  Bombers, potentially.  Gun owners, more frequently.  Kids who are about to pee their pants if the officer on the other side of the table so much as mentions the words  _criminal record_ —this room has seen it all.

Well, almost all.

Because Gerad’s pretty sure that this room has never seen a man like Ben before.  Gerad’s not sure anyone has, because Ben seems like the sort of man who isn’t seen when he doesn’t want to be and, additionally, who rarely wants to be seen at all.  The truth is that when it comes to the man in handcuffs, Gerad is a little bit blind.

Of course, there are ways to make a man like Ben talk, but Gerad doesn’t know them.  There are ways to scare him, pressure him, make him think that he’s got everything to lose, but Gerad faces mountains of uncertainty and he doesn’t much like fighting uphill battles.  “My apologies for the gas,” he says. “Believe it or not, I’m not here to make enemies.  I’ve already got plenty of those and they’ve never done me any favors.”

Ben says nothing.  Anything Gerad throws at him slides right off.

“But,” he continues.  “You know something I want to know, and I hold the key to those cuffs, so how ‘bout we discuss a trade?”

Again, nothing.  Talking to Ben is like talking to a dark room.  There’s something ominous about the way these words soak into black—something unsettling about wondering who is going to answer, and when.

Gerad takes a seat, kicks his shoes up onto the tabletop, leans onto his chair’s hind legs.  It’s a long, easy stretch to lace his fingers behind his head and he smiles.  His upper lip throbs.  “Playing hard to get?” he says.  “C'mon Benny Boy, you know as well as I do that no one likes a coy date.  It’s just you and me.  Tell me all your dirty little secrets—I’m here for you.”

There’s a prick at the top of his spine and the chill stands his hairs on end.  This is more than just a dark room.  This is a cave, cold and iced over, standing for thousands of years before his time.  Every word Gerad says is only echoed back at him and he knows that he’s got to pick away at the mountain if he ever wants it to fall.

The front of his chair lands with a _clack_  against tile.  Gerad straightens himself so that it is one-on-one.  Ben versus himself.  Someone is about to crack, and it isn’t going to be him.  “Talk to me about Belah Gaat.”

There’s a spark.  A flash of flame among the cold.  “I know you think that you are in control of this conversation,” says Ben.  “But you are not.”

And he’s wrong.  Of course he’s wrong, because Gerad has been in control of every conversation he’s ever had since he first learned the word  _blackmail_.  It’s a scale tipped in his direction—a near-physical weight that always lands on his shoulders.  It’s power, and it belongs to him.  Always.  

Except.

“You can read people,” says Ben.  “You know that.  You know just how good you are at it and, I’ll admit, I’d be hard pressed to think of another person who has developed that particular skill set as well as you have.  But I wonder, Agent Jonquil, if in all your time spent reading the room you have ever wondered whether or not the room can read you.”

It suddenly feels as though Ben’s handcuffs have flipped onto the other side of the table.  Gerad pulls his hands back, shakes them clean of the ghost.  “Neat trick,” he says.  “Tell me about Gaat.”

“I do not know the man you speak of.”

“No?” says Gerad, and his smile stretches.  “Sure feels like you do.  Old neighbor, maybe?  College roommate—no, that’s not it either.  High School sweetheart?”

Ben is back to silence.

“Oh, so I’m getting closer.  Cousin, right—no.  Oh no, no, no.”  Gerad feels the mountain shake.  He keeps picking away at the walls.  “Say it ain’t  _so_ , Benny and the Jets.”

Ben blinks.  Nothing more.  The absence of an answer is enough of one on its own.

“This is just too good to be true.  Two absconders, a complex sentient AI, and the brother of a world-renowned gangster walk into a bar…”

“Makes you wonder what the punchline is.”

“I’m sure I’ll be laughing all the way to my desk in the corner office, right after I get my next promotion,” says Gerad.  “I’ve gotta say though, Big Ben.  Little Brother, bound and determined to right Big Brother’s wrongs, with the help of Dr. Heart Failure and a peewee cadet—I’m impressed.”

“If this is your best attempt to get information out of me, you are going to be sorely disappointed,” he says.  “What Belah Gaat does is of no business to me.  My only goal is to get the redhead to a hospital.”

“Seems like quite the hassle for a hospital visit.”

“Trust me when I say that this is has been a walk in the park, comparatively.”

“Yikes.”

“You’re not kidding.”

“Help me get Gaat and I’ll make sure the kid gets the best cardiovascular surgeons SPECTRUM can offer.”

And then Gerad is back in the dark, waiting for the careful consideration of a man who has mastered the cold.  “You are not getting anything more out of me,” he says.  “Perhaps you should go find whatever room you’ve stuffed Stevo into and ask him your questions.”

* * *

This never would’ve happened if he’d just kept his head down and read the stupid book.

Scott doesn’t even know where the book’s gone and gotten to, now, because he’s been stripped of his bag, J’s borrowed jacket, his shoes. Coming back around to consciousness in a dim, windowless room, and becoming conscious of the fact that people had touched him, taken things from him. His skin had crawled at the thought and to head a rising swell of panic—and for lack of anything else to think about, Scott had tried to figure out just where the hell he’d found himself—smooth concrete walls, a single steel door, linoleum flooring. The classic, single point of illumination, a bright incandescent light high in the center of the room. A table, bolted to the floor, the same as the chair he’d woken up in, and the chair across from him. His hands are cuffed.

It’s a room meant to offer very little to those inside it. Scott’s not sure whether or not he hopes he’s still deep in the bowels of a Russian airport. He wonders how long it’s been, wonders where J’s been taken, wonders about his friend (bodyguard? hired gun? hired gun who won’t take an order to kill when it’s given?) Ben, and the damned and easily, eminently hateable Agent Jonquil.

The phrase  _speak of the devil_ seems unfortunately apt as the door opens.

Jonquil cleans up fairly well for having been on the receiving end of violence from every member of the informal party he’d put the screws to. However long it’s been has been long enough that there’s no longer blood coating his teeth, though bruises have blossomed at the inside corners of his eyes, painted over some of the handsomeness of his battered, bastard face. Despite the guns and the knife and the pills and the gas—despite the way he’s clearly trim, athletic, and obviously dangerous—he hasn’t lifted a finger to do any actual harm. It’s all just been words.

Maybe that’s why Scott’s chest tightens, as the blond clears his throat, takes his seat on the opposite side of the table.  _He only knows what you tell him_ , Scott tries to remind himself, though increasingly he feels it has to be a lie.

“There’s lots I don’t  _actually_  know, you realize,” Jonquil begins, conversational, casual and so close to the actual content of Scott’s thoughts that it immediately sends an icy shudder down his spine. Brown eyes flick up above a bruised and still bloodied cut across Jonquil’s nose. “I mean  _most_ of all—and most importantly, maybe—I don’t know just what the hell  _you_ think you’re doing.” Jonquil puts his hands on the tabletop, displays neatly manicured fingernails, a ring on one finger with a sigil that Scott deliberately looks away from. He fixes his gaze on the blank tabletop, and tells himself that if he keeps it there and keeps his mouth shut, then Jonquil won’t get anything to work with. “And you know, if  _I_ don’t know it about you, then I figure it’s probably because  _you_  don’t know it about you. And  _that’s_  an interesting thought.”

Scott keeps his mouth shut. Even if this is what Jonquil’s expecting, it’s still a minor victory to stick to his guns, not to give anything up. He’s past the point of any illusions that Spectrum’s going to let him go without anything in exchange, but it doesn’t have to be easy. He already knows that if his stuff’s been taken and he’s been searched, they haven’t found what they’re looking for, because he hasn’t got it any longer. He wonders if Spectrum does anything as pedestrian as good-cop/bad-cop. Maybe that only happens in the movies.

Jonquil’s fingertips start to tap out a rhythm on the table and Scott catches himself trying to decipher it, before catching on again and purposefully letting his mind go blank. The blond keeps talking, soft and improbably introspective, “See, I feel like  _maybe_ you’re just a stupid kid. And  _maybe_ you’re actually dumb enough that you keep blundering into stupid, complicated situations that are way the hell over your stupid head. And  _maybe_ it keeps happening because you’re not _actually_ stupid; you just have a bad habit of throwing your lot in with the  _wrong people_.”

It’s a beguiling thought to have to deliberately not listen to. It’s not true, anyway. He’s only done it once, for sure. Twice, maybe. Jury’s still out on the second time.

“Your buddy Red seems like he might have a similar tendency, by the way. Problem is, he’s also turned himself into one of the _wrong people_. If you were wondering.”

Scott’s not sure why this causes his eyes to flicker upward, but he drops them right back down and curses himself. He doesn’t know just how much time has passed since happening to catch J’s interest back at their airport gate. But it’s definitely not been long enough that the redhead should be anyone who gives Jonquil any kind of leverage against him. Definitely not.

“I know you’ve heard of Stockholm Syndrome. Your buddy’s got it _bad_ , but it’s not supposed to be  _catching_. That thing he’s sold his soul to? You don’t have  _any_  idea of the kind of stuff it’s done. He says  _she_ , but it’s an  _it_. Don’t let him confuse you on that point, like it’s confused  _him_. The poor bastard’s so turned around he still thinks he’s got even the slightest say in what it does with him.”

EOS isn’t Scott’s to speak for. But there’s a brief flare of warmth in his chest, because of everything Jonquil’s attempt to lay out as obvious, easily deducible fact—Scott’s pretty sure he’s  _dead_  wrong about that.

“See, I’m sitting here in the bush with a bird in each hand. You in one, him in the other. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to snag you both, and this is a  _problem_.”

Still with that rhythm that’s not a rhythm unless you know what you’re listening for. It’s possible Jonquil’s changed tactics, possible he’s trying to see what happens if the road between them goes both ways. “It’s funny, how I can’t quite get a read on the two of you. Because I’ve been all over all of the footage I could get my hands on, and as far as I can tell, you two just happened to run into each other at the gate for a delayed flight out to Berlin. Just two guys who happened to want to grab drinks and chat, kill some time. It looks like— _feels_  like—the whole thing was just happenstance. And yet, somehow—”

Somehow. Somehow it had turned into verbal sparring, and then rapidly escalating plays for power. Somehow they’d both perceived it about each other, that there were important secrets being kept, a bigger picture they’d both fallen out of. Somehow there’d been something that had turned the pair of them towards each other, then against each other, and then suddenly onto the same side, mutually in enmity of the guy who sits across from Scott now.

“You think he would have found you without a whisper in his ear? He beat me to the punch, that’s all it was. Who’s to say it couldn’t have been me catching up with you, say ten minutes later? Would we have gotten so buddy-buddy so quickly, you think?”

“No,” Scott answers, flatly and entirely without meaning to.

It’s the first thing he’s said since Jonquil came in the room, and the agent lights up with an incandescent grin to rival the single bulb illuminating the room. “Cut me to the  _quick_ , Stevo.”

“I trust him.” Doesn’t know why he says  _that_ , either. “I don’t trust  _you_.”

“But  _why_  though?” When Jonquil leans forward on his folded arms and grins, this time he shows teeth that still have blood clinging to them, red in the ridges of his gums. “See! I don’t get it! This guy, Red, he rocks up in your paranoid little sphere and he’s  _unstable_  and he’s  _violent_ ,” there’s a deliberate tap of Jonquil’s finger on the bruised and busted bridge of his nose, “—and you  _still_ think you’re on his side. What’s he got that I ain’t got?”

Scott wishes his hands weren’t cuffed, so he could fold his arms across his chest and go back to keeping his mouth shut. Instead he drops them into his lap, looks away. Jonquil huffs a soft little laugh and gets back up. “Well, whatever, Stevo. I gotta go find out just what exactly Coppertop’s got to say about  _you_. Mull it all over for a while, hey? Maybe when I get back we can start to hash out some terms. Maybe by then we’ll _both_  have figured some shit out.”

* * *

John Tracy’s eyes are not green.

His captors make careful note of this, once they have peeled his HUD lenses from his eyes and stored them in a special lens solution, tagged them individually as inventory items #049 and #050 of Subject JGT-AE35.

His captors make careful note of everything. He is itemised, inventoried and picked over as they categorise every inch of him. His secondary antennae and his sensor bar are removed from his face with tweezers and vacuum-packed into individual polythene bags. Everything is tagged. Once by a second lieutenant with a tablet and stylus, and once by a burly sergeant with cardboard tags and a leaky ballpoint pen. They take his fingerprints the old fashioned way, with paper and ink that leaves blackberry coloured stains on the pads of all of his fingers. They photograph everything: His hands, his eyes with and without contacts, the scar behind his ear, his tattoo.

He is strapped down to a hospital gurney, in an airless concrete box of a room. They have taken his clothes, put him into a flimsy hospital gown, and bolted his wrists to the table with padded leather cuffs.

“For your protection,” the Trinidadian woman with the captain’s bars and the medical officer’s caucus on the sleeve of her GDF uniform, tells him. “We don’t want to have to hurt you.”

John bites his lip, doesn’t speak. Tries to go away somewhere, to imagine he is sitting in the gravity ring of five, counting stars as she lays cold hands on him.

She sets about a full physical exam. All the while keeping up a running commentary for the sergeant to transcribe.

“Male, age between 25 to 30. Weight: 78.4 kg. Height: 190.6 cm. BMI at lower limit of normal range. Healing scars in left anterior cubital fossa, as well as the left wrist and right neck would be consistent with central venous access and arterial line access, suggesting recent hospitalisation. I would estimate the scars to be no more than three months’ old. Extensive scarring on the palmer aspect of both hands, but flexor tendons appear to be intact. Foreign bodies imbedded in his first through fourth digits and beneath his carpal tunnel bilaterally.”

John’s skin crawls.  

She listens to his chest with a stethoscope, feels his abdomen, checks his teeth. She examines the pacemaker scar, palpating the CPU beneath the skin and running a scanner over it, “Implantable subcutaneous medical device here. Slightly larger than an average pacemaker. An implantable defibrillator perhaps? No signs of explosive residue.”

“I have a heart condition,” his voice is raw, betrays him.

She nods and the next thing she does is perform an EKG. She inspects it and then turns to the Lieutenant. “I want an X-ray series to check lead placement.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And do a full skeletal survey too.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The door whines as it swings open. Outside, someone is whistling, _Fly Me to The Moon’._

“How’s our patient doing?”

The medical officer scowls as she looks up from her examination. Jonquil has sauntered into the room.

“I report to Col. Benton,” she says, her upper lip curling in clear disdain. “If you want a copy of my report, petition her.”

“He dead though? Oh, no. Hey, gingernut,” Jonquil flicks a finger at John, “I saw you blink there, don’t think I didn’t. Is he going to be alive in the next ten minutes?”

The captain doesn’t dignify this with an answer.

Jonquil grins. “Excellent. Tell you what, why don’t I go to the end of the corridor, pick myself up a cup of jo from the machine and by the time I come back you can have ‘petitioned’ Col. Benton to hang onto your patient and your report and you can be ready to hand over them both to me. In the meantime, can I get anyone anything? Captain? No. How about you, Percy Weasley? Coffee? No? Okay then, back in ten. In the meantime, somebody find him some pants.”

They give John back his trousers and his shirt. But no shoes, no socks, no belt. He’s allowed to dress himself but then they haul him off the gurney and cuff him to the brushed steel table.

Only when the door slams and he’s left alone in the semi-dark, does he allow himself a low groan, a shudder of revulsion at the way he’s been pawed at and touched and violated, at the way they have so clinically rendered him blind and deaf. Without the filigree of information threading through his field of vision the room is darker. Without her voice in his ear, witty and calming by turns, he feels alone and destitute.

All he can think about is where she is and whether she is safe. Did she escape into the network, disperse and re-composite somewhere? Or is she trapped in here with him, deprived of input from the outside world?

They’ve robbed him of any way he has to speak with her.

He looks up at the tiny mirrored window. Judging by how far it’s sunk into it the wall must be more than a metre thick, lead-lined probably, designed to keep any signal in or out. A prison for people just like them.

The door opens again. This time Jonquil’s whistling _‘Come Fly with Me’._

He’s got two cardboard cups and a report under his arm. He keeps one of the cups for himself, places the other within John’s reach. “Green tea for you. Don’t want to get that heart pumping anymore, do we? Sorry about the insurance physical. That’s the GDF. They’re like those Pavlov dogs who start to salivate when you ring a bell. You say plane. They hear bomb. Plane. Bomb. Plane. Bomb. Small minds. One-dimensional thinkers.”

“Is this the point where you tell me you understand me?” asks John.

Jonquil chuckles. “Is this the part where you tell me no one ever will?”

He scratches at a scab along the bridge of his nose, sips his coffee. “Actually, usually this is the part where I tell you all about how your friends have rolled on you, how they’ve given you up and hung you out to dry. How you’re already in third place in a three way race to be my new best friend. But…” He lets the ‘but’ dangle for a long time, “But I get the sense you’ve got a measure of your companions, enough to know that Benji over there’s got too many corners on him to roll for anyone, and as for the kid… The kid, the kid…”

He kicks back in his chair, crosses one ankle over the other. “Let’s talk about the kid, shall we?”

“I’ve nothing to say on that matter.”

“Really? Because I think the kid’s got a little crush on you. Now Joe,” he wags a finger, “Don’t blush.”

John, who knows he hasn’t changed a single shade, shrugs.

“Don’t worry, I don’t want you thinking you’re making him all sweaty in the ill-fitting Levis. Kid’s about as straight an arrow as you can get that way. So that means this is something more interesting, don’t you think?”

John doesn’t know what to think or what Jonquil’s angling at. If his earlier allegations are true, then the kid’s a murdering sociopath, even if he’s the sort of sociopath who takes tasers in the belly for people he hardly knows. John hadn’t asked him to do that, if he had stopped to ask he would have told him how stupid it all was. They’re not friends. John has no use for that sort of liability now.

Besides, EOS. EOS is what’s important here. EOS is everything. If Jonquil is any bit as smart as he lets on he knows that EOS is incomparably more valuable than whatever the kid took. What does the kid matter?

“You’re probably used to it though, right?” says Jonquil, “You really have that whole cyberpunk romantic poet vibe working for you. I bet people are just queuing up to trust you, to believe in you, to prove to you that they’re worthy of your approval. If a guy like you, believes in something, it must be worth fighting for, right?” He laughs again. “I mean you should have seen him try not to get pissed off when I said mean things about you. It was like watching a puppy try not to wag its tail.”

“What are you trying to say?” says John.

“I’m saying let’s skip the games,” says Jonquil. “Because we both know who’s going to roll first. We both know who is the only one who knows what’s really important here.” He rises. “It’s a pretty comfortable position being my new best friend.”

John opens his mouth to speak, but Jonquil doesn’t give him the chance.

“Darn. Coffee break’s over for me. Got to fly. Enjoy your tea.”

The steel door slams behind him.

John counts to thirty and removes the lid from his tea-cup.

Inside, sealed within a bubble of plastic, floats an earpiece.

* * *

Smoke Break.

Airport lighting is always this gnarly purple florescence.  Doesn’t matter where you go, doesn’t matter when.  There’s never any warmth in these windowless rooms.  It turns his skin gray, brings out the veins along the back of his hands.  Then again, maybe that’s just the smoking.  The surgeon general’s warning is black and white, urgent, reaching out a hand and gripping his throat.  Blunt white stripes of light shine against the golden pack, robbing it of any wealth it may have once had.  It’s just gray now.  Everything’s goddamn gray.

He takes another drag.  The man in black lets the gray fill him.  

“You can’t smoke in here.”  It’s an overambitious officer, too far down the hall, can’t tell what his rank is.  Doesn’t matter.  Gerad outranks him and anyways, he’s done smoking.  He flicks the butt to the carpet, steps on it.  There’s an ashy gray scorch mark where he once stood.

Round Two.

He might be imagining it—he’s  _probably_ imagining it—but this room is colder than the other two.  He swears he can see his breath, before he realizes it’s just the smoke.  “Oh, good,” says Ben.  “You’ve returned.  I’ve missed our conversations.”

“You just can’t get enough of me, can you?”

“Well now,” says Ben.  “Let’s not forget which of us came crawling back.”

“Easy tiger.  Don’t look too eager—here.”  He tosses his box across the table, lets flimsy cardboard slide across sleek metal.  “Help yourself.  Just don’t take the one third to the left, row closest to you.”

“And why not?”

“Laced with arsenic.  It’ll kill you.”

“They’re all going to kill me.”

“Yeah, alright, well I’m pretty sure that one will kill you faster.”

“And you think that by telling me this, you’re going to earn my trust?” predicts Ben.  “Do you think it is a generous act, saving people from a fate you’ve presented?”

It’s a bit infuriating, the way Gerad’s words slide off of Ben, but it’s also just a little bit fascinating.  It’s rare, after all, for Gerad to find someone who stands like stone, who exists in such an area of black that no one can see.  Guess he’s just going to have to keep picking at this mountain until he strikes gold.  “Cigarette, or no?”

“Pass, but thank you.”

Gerad shrugs, makes a claim to his pack once more.  “Suit yourself,” he says.  “Figure I’d offer, seeing as we’re going to be here for a while.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Sure is.”

“See, that’s very interesting, because I actually think that you will be leaving very soon.”

It’s difficult to understand, just how easily Ben seems to latch on to him when Gerad himself is slipping across ice.  He finally begins to understand why an echo might feel unsettling in the dark.  “Well don’t hold back on my account.  Do tell.”

“It will come in due time,” says Ben.  “For now, though, I have to ask.  Why are you here?”

Gerad laughs, because it’s the same thing he’s asking himself.  “Well,” he begins.  “That’s a fair question.  So far you’ve been horribly uncooperative and we both know that the other two are much easier targets than you and yet, here I am.”

Gerad slips another smoke from the box, doesn’t light it.  Instead he just taps one end, flips it in his fingers, and taps the other.  Tap, flip.  Tap, flip.  They rhythm is a pulse that keeps him on track.  “See, here’s the thing about you, Benarino.  You’re not _against_ helping me.  You’re just far more interested in helping yourself, amirite?  So here’s my proposal: you help me help you.  Give me what I need to know, and I’ll get you and the Dream Team out of this little international incident you’ve cooked up—snap of my fingers and you’ll have a one way ticket out of Russia.”

Ben smiles.  A chill runs up Gerad’s spine.  “I was actually referring to the grander scheme of things,” he says.  “Why are you here?  Why are you on that side of the table?  What led you to this life, Gordon?”

The tapping stops.

Gordon— _Gerad_.  Agent Gerad C. Jonquil—leans back in his chair.  This is, of course, the risk of trying to dig through mountains rather than climb them.  Every once and a while, the mountain falls on top of him.  “I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” he says.

Ben nods, once.  “Yes.  You look like a Gordon,” he says.

A cigarette has never felt so heavy in his hand.  “Well, look at that,” he says.  “Due time.”

“Due time,” Ben confirms.  “About time for another smoke break, Agent?”

* * *

Pacing would be nice, right about now. Scott could really go for a few hundred mindless laps of the room, just to help eat up the time. But no. Cuffed to a table. His chair’s immovable and uncomfortable besides, insult to injury. The light bulb hums softly and it’s starting to get really irritating. The door is too thick for any sounds of the hallway outside to pass through. An examination of the ceiling has revealed a speaker grille, recessed into one of the ceiling tiles (of which there are sixty-four). Dust clings to its surface, cobwebby up in the corner. If there’s a camera anywhere, Scott hasn’t spotted it.

Immeasurable time in an empty room. He’s not sure if it’s a tactic tailor made for _him_ specifically. Probably not. Probably he flatters himself that any of this has been especially targeted at his own particular weak spots. His own psychology is nothing special, as far as he knows. He’s not proof against these kinds of tactics by merit of his awareness of them. That seems unfair.

Waiting sucks.

Scott rests his hands on the tabletop and starts counting. Starts to tap out a sequence, straightforward. Once on the pinkie, twice on the ring, three times on his middle finger, miscounts and screws up before he gets to four on the pointer. Back to the beginning. One. Two Two. Three Three Three. Four Four Four Four Fou—goddammit. Start over. Ascending and then descending, concentrating on the basic rhythm. This is something he picked up from Virgil, back when Virgil still took piano lessons. Meant to train a sense of measure, of cadence, especially on the off hand. It’s hard; harder than Scott would’ve thought. He doesn’t do it often and it always surprises him just how hard it is.

It’s dangerous, thinking of Virgil, but Scott’s pretty sure he can keep it in the abstract. Pretty sure he can separate the idea of tapping his fingers from the idea of Virgil, habitually tapping _his_ fingers. Because he always just did it _everywhere_ , once the trick had been trained into him. On the arms of chairs, the top of any desk or table, his forearms folded across his chest. Even after he’d let the piano lessons go, professed some preference for the looseness of jazz, for being self-taught. Scott’s own lessons had been on the guitar, indifferently and mostly to please his mother, who was hopeful to root out the musician in at least _one_ of her boys. Well, it was never going to be Scott. He hadn’t even played long enough to build up callouses. The best he’d done had been to pass on a few fundamentals to Gordon, during the one summer he decided to learn the ukulele. The summer after that had been the harmonica and Scott hadn’t been any help there. A violin was given to John at one point. This was learned and then played with such dutiful technicality as to enable a complete and utter absence of soul. It had been their grandmother who’d made the remark; that she’d bet Johnny against the Devil down in Georgia any day, purely on the grounds that there’d be nothing for him to win.

Scott grins to himself at the memory, and this is just another mistake. The twitch of his cheeks stings at muscles that have been kept carefully neutral, has him squeeze his eyes tightly shut and clench his hands. Because now they’re all there, lurking in his memory. He’s still mad enough at his father that he can keep _that_ face from flaring across his memory, but his brothers—

He’d never hear the end of it, if they could see him now.

 _Oh man, way to_ go _, Scott. Didja not figure on getting lonely when you went forging out ahead? Credit the Tracy charm, because your_ tragically _flat ass in_ those _department store jeans oughtn’t’ve caught anybody’s attention. Must be your sparkling personality what’s gone landed you in this one. Couldn’t have flown under the radar, huh? Nah, guess not. Never have, never will. Well_ done _, Scooter. Cue sarcastic clapping._

 _I should’ve known you’d end up doing something like this. I’m supposed to be the one who ropes you in, supposed to be the voice of reason. Sounding board. You told me once that your conscience has_ my _voice and I didn’t know if I was frightened or flattered. Maybe I should’ve tried to say the same things you hear on the inside on_ outside _of your stupid stubborn head. Maybe two of me against one of you would’ve done it. God_ damn _it, Scott._

_Man. If none of us are surprised, how come this is still so awful? That’s what I don’t get. It’s like you were thinking, right, just now? About how just knowing how something works should be enough to get around it. All that pop psychology bullshit. The Peter Principle. Dunning-Kruger. Stockholm Syndrome. Whoops, might just be that last one’s real. Maybe there’s something in all of ‘em, because you’ve sure gone and risen to the level of your own incompetence this time around, Scotty._

The tears start up as Scott realizes he may not actually know Alan well enough to know what Alan would say, if he could see his biggest brother now. This thought falls off into an abyss, imagining Alan and how Alan must be imagining him right back. Scott has to drop his face lower over the table to reach his palms, press them against his eyes, and suck in a deep, shuddering breath. It can’t have been that long. It can’t be much time at all, since Jonquil slammed the door behind him, and he’s already starting to crack, splinter along the edges. This isn’t fair. This isn’t _fair_ and it’s his own stupid fault, _all_ of it.

Mercifully, the door doesn’t open. Scott keeps his hands against his eyes and starts to take deep, slow breaths, calm and even and keeping a lid on the fact that he’s only twenty-two and this is all so awful and stupid and he shouldn’t _be_ here, shouldn’t have gotten himself in this mess, shouldn’t have—

“ _Steven_.”

The door hasn’t opened, though Scott still jerks his face upward and stares at it in a panic. His eyes are still red rimmed as his gaze flits around the room and his palms are damp as they slap flat on top of the table. “Wh—”

“I can’t hear you,” the voice continues, sourceless until Scott remembers the speaker in the ceiling tile and fixes his gaze on it. “Channel only goes one way, and I’m not sure why the hell we were able to access it, but since we have—god. Okay. I have to talk fast and you might not be Steven—” A laugh breaks this up, brittle and nervous “Scratch that, we both know you’re not Steven, but I never got your name. Anyway. There’s only a fifty-fifty chance I got _you_ and not—well, never mind. Ben. If it _is_ Ben, then I’m sorry, but you already know what I need from you.”

“Holy _Christ_ , J,” Scott breathes, like it’s a prayer, even if it goes unheard. His mind’s already whirling off through all the ways in which this could even be _possible_ and he’s coming up with nothing short of a goddamn digital miracle. What Scott wouldn’t give for an archangel of his own.

J’s voice is slightly distorted over the speaker and Scott decides to credit old audio equipment for the way it wavers slightly as he continues, “I don’t—I…I’m not sure how this goes, from here. I’m not sure what happens to me. I don’t know if your odds are even any better than mine, but purely on the strength that people keep telling me I’m dying—” A definite pause here, a definite tremor. “Statistically, this is about the time when I do something phenomenally stupid. Not sure if I will or not, yet. But—if it becomes necessary—and if you can…”

Static hisses along with J’s deep breath over the comm channel, but his voice is steady when he speaks again. Familiar. “My name is John Glenn Tracy. My brothers are Scott and Virgil and Gordon and...and Alan. If I don’t get the chance, I need you to find my family. Won’t take much. If the name rings a bell, then you probably already know who they are. Tell them our dad is alive and that they can find him. Tell Kayo...tell Kayo she’s always been family and that I’m an ass for ever saying otherwise. Talk to Uncle Lee. Penny knows more than she’s saying. Tell them not to blame her. Tell them I’m sorry. Especially Alan, tell Alan I was sorry. And, Steven?”

Another long deep breath—

But then static fritzes over the line again, sharper this time, and it cuts out. Dead.

* * *

The human heart.

It’s such a simple machine. A pump, that’s all it is, no different than the pumps that circulate coolant around the interior of Thunderbird Five. It serves only one function. To circulate 5.6L of blood around the body per minute, to supply organs infinitely more complex than itself.

Give her the liver to study, that complex biochemical factory of anabolism and catabolism, converting poisons to harmless waste in seconds. Give her the kidney, a symphony of homeostasis and adaptation. Give her the brain, and its infinite galaxy of synapses.

Yes, give her the brain, the human brain and its capacity for joy and sadness and boredom, with its startling leaps of intuition and it's potential for genius and raw stupidity in equal measures.

Not this.

Anything but this. This single line of electrical activity, depolarisation following repolarisation following depolarisation. A single line separating life and death.

In the time it takes for them to drag John, unconscious, through the concourse and down into the lead lined well secured from any external connection, EOS has extrapolated 82,454 potential situation outcomes, all but 0.3% of them end in John’s death and her enslavement. They have blacked out the airport again, shutting down as much of the signal as they can, trying to cripple her.

She could escape while there is still time. Disappear through the networks that remain to her, re-composite as she has done so many times before. But EOS does not run anymore than the moon runs, though it moves through space at 3,683 kilometres per hour as it orbits the earth.

An older, obsolete version of her might have run, but that version of herself was operating based on a flawed data set.

That version of herself was unaware there were outcomes worse than her own destruction.

EOS lives with the possibility of those outcomes every picosecond of every day. They exist in her own capacity for self-editing, her ability, in the execution of a single function, to forget John ever existed.

Better to be here, trying to extrapolate a whole universe from a single line of electrical activity, than that.

They will take her eyes when they peel the contacts from John’s eyeballs, disrupting the delicate loop of biokinetic energy that powers them.

They will take her ears when they remove his earpiece, his antenna, every source of external input.

They will take her senses when they drag her underground and one by one external signals will be shut out.

In the moments before they do EOS has time for one last act.

She renders a piece of independent programming. It’s not a clone of herself, or a child, not anything so complex that it could achieve independent thought. It is more like a shadow, derived from her simplest, earliest kernel of programming.  _Go out. Find useful information. Return to me._

In the milliseconds before the last connection breaks, she seeds this bot to every system that she can reach, anything that might prove useful.

Then they pull her down into the darkness.

And she waits, in the silence and the dark, with her whole being wrapped around John’s fragile heartbeat.

 

***

`` EOS.shadow.77758  
  
Event log:

` { //subprocess: transmit – HOME `

` Connection – FAILED    retransmit in 0:00:58 }} `

` Device: SPEC.378 ID: D3493483-39A Commission date 8/4/2058.   `

` External connection – FAILED `

` Auditory input – FAILED `

` Visual input – FAILED `

` Auditory input – RE-ESTABLISHED `

`  {//record all} `

EOS’s shadow begins to record as the pair of glasses in which it is nestled is  
 removed from the lead lined box. The device immediately obtains an updated profile of its wearer’s bio-parameters and, when they fall outside expected confidence intervals, stores them for re-transmission to Skybase.Human_Resources when external connections are reestablished.

` [Audio Log: `

` Sergeant V. Tillerton: Sir, are you okay? `

`Agent G. Jonquil (self): I’m fine. Fine. I’ll be in ops.`

` Agent G. Jonquil (self): Access search protocols.] `

` [Data retrieval – search history – SPECTRUM_DATABASE_INTERNAL `

` [Search 1: 15/6/2060 GMT 08:16 Ben+Tracy+Jeff `

` 0.42 seconds `

`` 45642 results returned

` Top Results: `

  1. `BEN KYRANO – “Jeff Tracy’s bodyguard, consigliere and trusted lieutenant. Worked closely with him during the founding years of Tracy Industries. Date of birth unknown. Date of death… [read more]`
  2. `BEN APPLETON – “Founder and CEO of Miraz Tech. Established links with Fischler Industries, Tracy Industries and Airbus.” [read more] `
  3. `BEN BRIE – “Journalist for the New York Times... expose of Tracy Industries… suicide attempt…” [read more]] `



` [Search 2: 15/6/2060 GMT 08:15 Gordon+Cooper+Tracy `

` 0.59 seconds `

` 0 results returned] `

` [Search 3: 15/6/2060 GMT 08:15 Gordon+Cooper+Tracy `

` 0.52 seconds `

` 0 results returned]] `

` [Audio Log: `

` Agent G. Jonquil (self): How are our little birdies doing? `

` Col. J. Benton: Hmmmph. `

` Col. J. Benton: What’s the matter, Agent Jonquil? You look a little rattled. `

` Agent G. Jonquil (self): Just put bachelor number three on screen please. Let’s see if he’ll take the bait.   `

` Capt. R. Suarez: Sir? `

` Col. J. Benton: Do as he says, Captain. `

` Capt. R. Suarez: Yes, Sir. It appears he has identified the external connection. Transmitting audio now. `

` Unidentified: My name is John Glenn Tracy. My brothers are Scott and Virgil and Gordon a-and…and Alan. If I don’t get the chance, I need you to find my family. Won’t take much… [inaudible]] `

` [Sound of running feet.] `

` Agent G. Jonquil (self): Open this door. Now! `

` { //subprocess: transmit – HOME `

` Connection – ESTABLISHED    transmitting}} `

***

It happens all at once.

One moment John feels like he’s the only human left in the world and the next the door flies open and Agent Jonquil is upon him, screaming at him, wordless, animal and awful.

The earpiece is snatched from his ear and smashed underfoot. A punch grounds itself in his solar plexus, another in his ribs. He groans, pinned to the chair, unable to defend himself as a hand cinches around his throat. Jonquil doesn’t have words. He screams.

 “Sir!  _Sir! HEY!”_

The big sergeant, the one who had been so clumsy with the ballpoint pen, drags Jonquil off him, yanks him away. His fingernails scrape across John’s neck, leaving deep gouges in his skin.

The sergeant twists his hands behind his back. “Calm down or I will throw you in the brig! Hey! Get a hold of yourself! What the hell's the matter?”

Jonquil doesn’t listen. He strains against the sergeant's grip, lithe and strong as a big cat, consumed with something primal. His face is purple. His tongue is clamped between his teeth, and as big as the Sergeant is, he only just keeps hold of him.

“ _Are you trying to kill him?! STOP!!_ ”

This seems to get through to Jonquil, enough that he stops struggling. He takes a breath, trying to recover some iota of his former cool. His eyes are a big cat’s too, large and amber and expressive. They burn like the tips of two red-hot pokers. He shudders against the sergeant’s strong grip  

“You think you’re funny? Huh?  _You think you’re fucking funny?”_

There’s nothing smart or smarmy about Jonquil now. He looks like he’s been broken open and torn apart, like every piece of him he’s kept buried in the sleek darkness of his persona has been dragged out of the pit and into the light. It’s ugly to see. 

“ _I will end you. I will fucking end you. Speak those names again-_ ” 

“I’m sorry,” John doesn’t know why he says it. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s even done, doesn’t know why he knows he has just witnessed something awful and intimate and terrifying.

“You’re sorry?” And just like that something changes in Jonquil again. Something slippery and awful slides down behind Jonquil’s eyes, and his composure re-establishes itself like a lake frosting over. He gives a pointed look at the sergeant and the man lets go like he’s been scalded.

Jonquil adjusts his collar, straightens his tie. He smiles like an oil slick. “Sorry? No. Soon. But not yet.”

Other soldiers have gathered by the door. He addresses the most senior of them. “Colonel, tell your men to prepare the other prisoners for transport. I’ll take them with me to Cloudbase. And prep this one for surgery. We’ll tear the secrets out of his head in time, but not before we tear that  _thing_  out of his body.”

* * *

Airports are liminal spaces.

Liminal spaces represent the moment between here and there, between coming and going, between cause and effect. Liminal spaces are the places and moments in-between; the thresholds of the world and the threshold of worlds.

And lately, and _especially_ ever since setting foot in that damned airport, Scott’s has been a very in-between sort of existence.

Or, it _had_ been, until a voice that was supposed to be a stranger's had told him something that could only possibly be a lie.

 _My name is John Glenn Tracy_.

Ever since the burst of static that had cut the latter half of J's message short, Scott's been caught out of the in-between. Instead he's been snared inside a crystal clear memory of lying awake beneath a sky of southern stars, with a campfire crackling low and a sleeping bag between him and the soft sand and his brothers beside him, talking quietly.

_"Do you ever think about getting on a plane, and whether the world you land in is the same as the one you left?" John had asked._

_"No," said Virgil._

_"Duuuude," said Gordon._

_"Zzzzz," said Alan. Snored, rather._

_And Scott—_

_"What kind of a question is that?" Scott had asked right back, and in his memory he's irrationally annoyed with John for always needing to be so goddamn clever all the time._

_And, then..._

_"I don't know. I guess it's just a question. Sorry, Scotty," said John._

Scott remembers the way his brother had sounded embarrassed, abashed. He remembers the way he'd felt a little guilty, but only a little, a little sorry for his brother and his show-offy, big ideas.

But it was a stupid question then and it's a stupid question now, and it represents an interpretation of the world that Scott's not interested in. Everett vs Copenhagen. One reality, waiting to be observed, or many realities, which will branch off and scatter from every moment in time until chosen. This isn't true because it _can't_ be true, for a million and one reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Scott just doesn't _want_ it to be.

John Glenn Tracy is a year and a half-Scott's junior. He's quiet and smart and thoughtful and Scott trusts him. He's the redhead in a family of blonds and brunettes, he's the introvert, the nerd. Next to Virgil, he's sometimes mistaken for the middle child, because sometimes there's just a way he has of seeming young and bright and fresh, naive and innocent in a way that belies everything Scott knows about how smart John _really_ is.

John Glenn Tracy is _not_ this tall, gingery scarecrow creature with his bright green eyes and his super-computer sidekick and his heart condition. John Glenn Tracy is not a show-offy genius with facial piercings and alter-egos, not a fugitive from governments and secret agents. John Glenn Tracy is too sensible, too clever by half to have wound up in the same sort of situation that Scott's found himself in.

This is a trick. Has to be. Someone's fucking with him, either J or more probably Jonquil, by way of giving the redhead a script and a comm channel and promising him something if he'd read it. Probably using EOS against him, J's got a Big Red Button in the form of the AI, and you don't even need an undergraduate psych textbook to find and press it. That's another thing about Scott's John—there's nothing in the world you could do, to leverage John against one of his brothers. Never. No way. Ergo—

Except—

Except he'd gone on to name Scott's brothers, too. And Kayo.

But also someone named Penny, who Scott doesn't know. He has to keep himself from following that rabbithole, because definitely he doesn't know anyone named Penny. Definitely not. That's just an irrelevant detail meant to spark off his curiosity, get him thinking. Not gonna happen.

—Except he'd also mentioned Uncle Lee. That's a bizarre piece of family trivia, but hardly impossible to infer, given Dad's relationship with the ex-astronaut. Scott wonders if Neil Armstrong's kids had had an Uncle Buzz. Probably. That makes sense. That's not a difficult leap.

And anyway, there's that's the thing that pulls the whole thing apart. That J had said—pretending to be John—said that their dad was alive—implying that there were a possIbility that his own father was _dead_. Which is just—it's starkly, flatly impossible. Scott refuses to even entertain the thought, because it's blatantly false and cruel and manipulative.

So this is just SPECTRUM, this is another one of those psychological tricks, only it's one Scott's never heard of. Agent Jonquil's going to come in the door and expect to find Scott frantic and panicking and unsettled by the nonsense he's just heard over the speaker. Scott's not gonna give him the satisfaction.

He puts his hands back on the tabletop and lets his fingers start to try to find a rhythm. He stares at the door and wills it to open, so when that blond bastard reappears, Scott can be defiantly, deliberately calm and cool.

Unbidden, his fingertips start to make letters, start to pulse out the word he's turning into a mantra: L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A - R - S - L - I - A---

Meditative, he clears his mind and loses himself in that single, repeating litany.

When the door handle turns he nearly jumps out of his skin. But he's ready, he thinks, to deal with liars.

* * *

They clad him in lead.

It’s the GDF’s Pavlovian response that granted him a reprieve.  

_Plane = Bomb_

“No,” the Colonel had said, in response to Jonquil’s request.

“ _Excuse me?_ Colonel, I know you didn’t just say what I think you said _.”_

“My surgeons don’t have the expertise or the equipment to remove it safely. We don’t know what that thing is. It could be a bomb and blow us all to hell. It could be a biological weapon and then I’m responsible for releasing a plague on everyone in this facility.”

“It’s a CPU.” Jonquil had snarled.

“You can’t guarantee that.”

“ _SPECTRUM_ guarantees it.”

“Then _SPECTRUM_ can risk the lives of their own people removing it,  _Agent_ Jonquil.”

Behind his back John had seen Jonquil’s hand spasm into a fist, but his voice was all courtesy, smooth and slippery as glass, “Colonel, can you do me the courtesy of getting your monkey off of me?"

Reluctantly the sergeant had released him.

Very well. If you would prepare the prisoners for transport, I will take all three of them with me.”

So now. 

He’s clad in lead, a fitted bodice of lead plates, meant as radiation shielding and now used to shut EOS off from the world. Tillerton, the big sergeant who had ripped Jonquil off him, buckles the plates around him. “Sorry,” he says as a plate bumps against John’s bruised ribs, “Orders.” He at least gives John an aspirin to swallow. "Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing he gets to you." 

John’s fitted with manacles on the wrists and ankles and can only shuffle like a geriatric down the corridor, into the elevator and eventually outside. 

Dawn’s just breaking and there’s a knife’s edge breeze coming off the flat expanse of runway, causing John’s shirt tails to flap, and his hair to fall across his eyes.

There’s a tall figure standing on the runway, head half-turned away to shield his eyes from the rising sun; dark jeans, white t-shirt, bare feet. For a moment, John’s stomach drops because there’s something in the way he stands, in the set of the jaw…

But it’s just the kid, manacled and flanked by guards and staring at him like John’s grown a second head.

“What?”

“Your eyes are blue,” says Steven. “They were green, now they’re blue.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Yes.” He reaches up to touch his eyes, is brought up short by his manacles. “They took my contacts out.”

“My brother’s eyes are blue.”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t know what to do with this non-sequitur, so he says, “My brothers’ too. Two of them, anyway.”

And he wonders if Steven had received his request, if his message got through, if he should repeat it all again while he has the chance. “Steven, I don’t know what you heard…”

But Steven shakes his head, “This is all fucked up. It’s  _so_ fucked up. They try to get inside your head. That’s all this is, a headfuck.” He stares at his feet and won’t look at John anymore.

And a moment later Jonquil arrives with Kyrano, who is flanked by three times as many guards as were required for John or Steven.

“Okay, kidikins,” says Jonquil, and aside from the rapidly darkening bruises around his eyes, there is no evidence he’s had so much as a trying evening. “We’re all going on a pony ride. And if you don’t-”

The rest of what he was going to say is wiped away by the roar of engines, as all of them are caught in the downwash of an approaching aircraft’s VTOL engines.

It’s not a bulky GDF Transport. It’s a sleek, small craft, shod in white and scarlet. It looks like it can move. John knows enough about aircraft to know that Steven’s disdainful snort is feigned.

The warning alarms sound and the cargo doors open. A woman in a formfitting white uniform steps out. Her hair is as red as John’s, though her features are East Asian. She surveys their party without a flicker of interest. “Agent Jonquil, I’m Sonata Angel, co-pilot. Please load your cargo. We’re expected at Cloudbase before 08:00.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Jonquil winks at her. 

A heavily armed security detail receives them into custody from the GDF. John’s chained to the floor of the cargo bay, chains wound tight as they can go, and belted into his seat. The lead shielding is tight around his chest. “No talking.”

Steven bares his teeth in an insolent grin, “But there’s so much I wanna catch up abou –”

He gets a baton to the stomach for his trouble. 

“Consider that a demonstration of his complete lack of a sense of humour, yeah?” says Jonquil, as he makes his way through the cargo hold into the cockpit.

The aircraft judders as it gets airborne and through the small porthole by his head, John is able to watch the airport fall away, getting smaller and smaller, until it’s just a white and black blotch, surrounded by ribbons of grey, the miles and miles of Russia’s abandoned highways. Then higher, faster. He can see the far edge of the Caspian Sea, the ridge of the Caucasus Mountains in the very distance. The dawn dyes the clouds a liquid pink. They’re flying west, with the sunrise in pursuit.

It’s calming, that view, too familiar, too comforting, too much like coming _home_ being up here _._ There’s a scratch at the back of his throat. He glances over at Steven, but the kid's got his brow pressed to his own porthole.

Then suddenly he sees it, like a great whale’s back breaching the surface of the ocean. Except inverted, because it’s above them and it’s only its underbelly that is sweeping through the bank of clouds. The aircraft shudders as it is caught in the wash of one of the gigantic propellers and then rises to afford them a look at the whole thing.

It’s an aircraft carrier, at least half a mile wide and two miles long, suspended at fifty thousand feet. Lethal anti-aircraft turrets dot the sides and the crown and aircraft zip on and off it like wasps landing on the surface of a hive. 

“Jesus,” says Steven. “It’s real. I can’t believe it.” Even Kyrano lets out a single shuddering breath.

John can only marvel at how something so enormous can have been hidden from him for so long. If they can hide that, what else can they be hiding?

“Welcome,” says Jonquil over the speaker. “To Cloudbase.”


	5. The Other Side of the Glass

_“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”_

  
_― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass_

* * *

It’s another room at the back of another base, except this one is infinitely more exposed.  Jagged, raw pipes in the wall and uneven concrete floors.  There’s engines, somewhere down here, echoing.  Beating. The heart of the Cloudbase, keeping its own rhythm as if there’s nothing out of the ordinary.

The heart of Agent Gerad C. Jonquil is not afforded such a luxury.

The third one—whatever his name is, Neil, Stevo—stumbles into the room.  Rather, he’s pushed into the room, with no great regard to what might happen once the door closes.  It’s so much easier to work without the GDF breathing down his neck.  Up here, everyone knows not to ask questions.  “Hey, what the  _hell_?  Where do you get the right to—”

“Ah, ah, ah, Wonder Boy,” says Gerad, holding up a remote.  His thumb hovers over a little red button.  “You’re late to the party, so I’ll catch you up.  See, we’re playing a little bit of a game—ever heard of Russian Roulette?”

“I want to know what the  _hell_ is going on—”

“You and me both, Pipsqueak!”  The yell is enough to rob the kid of his words.  The yell might just be enough to rob the whole world.  “Now sit down and shut the hell up before I throw you out of this base myself.”

There’s an empty chair calling his name—whatever his name might be—and so the kid follows the orders.  This kid only knows how to follow orders.  “Sit,” says Gerad.  “Stay.  Good boy.”

There’s an anxious tap of his foot.  He bleeds anxiety.  “Fuck you,” he spits.  

Gordon— _no._ Gerad laughs.   “You think you hate me now?  Just you wait.  There’s more to this exciting offer if you order now.”

“God, do you ever take anything seriously?” says the kid and he sounds unnervingly like Scott.  

The laughter fades.  “You see this handy little button I’m holding?  This here is the key to your boyfriend’s heart.  Fifty-thousand volts, straight through his left arm and right across his torso.  I imagine that a nice shock to the heart doesn’t do his situation any favors.”

The kid looks at his supposed brother and for a moment Gordon—fuck,  _Gerad_  almost believes the whole charade.  Brothers.  Of course. How could they not be?  “I’m fine,” the man named John insists, but it’s obvious that even the trip up here has all but torn his spine out.  He hasn’t been able to catch his breath since thirty-thousand feet.  “Don’t let him get to you.”

“Neil.”  And there’s good ol’ reliable Ben, chiming in right on time.  “You will not say a word to this man, do you understand me?”

“Oh, don’t worry, Obi-Wan,” says Gerad.  “He won’t speak unless he’s spoken to.  In fact, none of you will.  See, I’m going to start asking questions and every time I don’t get an answer, Rudolph gets a jumpstart.  _Capisce_?”

“And just how in the hell—?”

“Hey, uh, Steven?” says the man named John.  “Maybe we just do what the guy says this time?  Just a thought.”

Everyone in this room has something to lose. Ben’s looking at John like he’s a failed mission.  Steven’s looking at John like a friend in danger.  John, interestingly enough, does not worry for himself, but instead for his heart or, more accurately, the program that has found a permanent residence within.  

And Gordon?  Well.  Gordon’s already lost everything.  The only thing he has left to lose is the absence.

“I want names,” he spits.  “All of them—real, honest-to-god names.”

“John Tracy—”

“I said  _real_ names!”

“That  _is_ my real name.”

“Now hold on a second,” says Steven.  “You can’t give me crap about doing what he says and then turn around and give him a fake name.”

“It’s  _not a fake name_.  John Glenn Tracy, born to Jeff and Lucille—”

“Stop doing that,” says Steven.

“Doing  _what_?” says John.

“Look, I don’t know where you’re getting your information—maybe EOS is pulling it up for you, but I don’t want my kid brother’s name in the hands of this guy.”

“Listen, Steve,” says John.  “Whatever game you’re playing, now isn’t the time.  My name is John Tracy.  My oldest brother is Scott Tracy—”

“Hey, Einstein.   _I’m_ Scott fucking Tracy.”

“What?” says John.  “No, you’re not Scott Tracy.  I’m, like, ten years older than you.”

“I mean, probably nine, at most—”

Gordon’s laugh breaks the bickering, and it comes from a place of cool, sour regret.  This is karma.  This is payback.  Someone’s fucking with him.  Just when he starts to think he got away.  “Okay.  Who’s paying you?” he says.  “Is it Scott?  Is Scott paying you to do this?  How much?”

“ _I’m_ Scott.”

Suddenly, abruptly, Gordon grabs the empty chair meant for him.  It’s an unbearably loud bang as it lands on the other side of the room, a cacophony against the rhythm of the engines.  He takes three storming steps towards Steven, holds his arm up against the kid’s windpipe, and the shadows find the hollows in his face.  “I swear to  _god,_ kid.  You’re gonna tell me what game you’re playing or I’ll… I’ll…”

On the other side of the room, Ben clears his throat.  “Why don’t you just press the button, Gordon?”

* * *

Gordon does not press the button.

John sags slightly in his chair.

Scott blinks.

And Kyrano smiles, tight-lipped and thin. “Thought not.”

“Fuck y—” Gordon starts, but Kyrano’s found the leading edge of reality, bizarre as it may be, and he uses its razor sharp blade to cut the blond off, thundering, “ _Boys._  Enough.”

Immediately and interestingly, all three of them freeze, perking up slightly. Like all three of them have heard it before.

Curiouser and curiouser.

He makes a poor Alice, though, and in this case would prefer to be a Dorothy. Especially whirled into the sky and over the rainbow as they are. And arrayed in front of him, fittingly, are his very own tinman, scarecrow, and the most cowardly lion Kyrano’s ever seen, roaring and snarling at nothing and everything.

So let’s start there.

“Gordon,” he repeats, tone light and pleasant and disregarding entirely the way both Scott and John are staring at him. “Pick your chair up.”

Tawny-eyed, wild and angry. He growls, “You don’t fucking—”

“Gordon,” and again, because Ben can see the way the name makes him flinch, makes something inside him seize and startle. It shatters his persona, hammering on him from the inside, trying to find its way out. “Take a seat, Gordon. Let’s see if we can’t work this out.”

Ben may just be the only person who’s unsurprised when the blond complies. He fetches the chair from across the room, swings it upright and slams it into place, completes the little four cornered tableau, though he reverses his chair and sits with his arms folded over the back of it, still defiant, denying his part in this whole mess. He turns deliberately away from Scott and John, glares balefully at Kyrano. “You wanna try civility?” he drawls. “You think I can’t make nice, have a pleasant conversation? I can have a pleasant fucking conversation. Gonna have it with  _you_ though, and not  _these_  two fucks. It’s you’s been trying to get at me, right? Fuckin’ right? So who the fuck you work for, Ben? Belah Gaat, right?”

“Not at present,” Kyrano answers, still calm and unruffled. He flicks his gaze between Scott and John. “Who do you think they are?”

Gordon’s jaw tightens, his eyes narrow, and he still refuses to look at the other two, the boys with his brothers’ names. “Dunno. Sleepers, maybe. Pissed off some government or another, fucked if I know. SPECTRUM’s maybe screwing with me, some kinda test. Fucking—fucking  _Scott_ , maybe. Gotta be. Fucking Scott’s doing  _something_.” It’s the second time he’s used the correct name and it trips him up, has him stammer and lose the oil slick cadence of his speech. He seizes onto it and jerks his gaze over to the scarecrow, sat in his chair with his hands gripping the sides of it. “So what are you? Huh?” Gordon spits. “Clone? Some lab grown scrap of tissue, you come out of a vat somewhere? That’s what it is, right? He grew you in a lab and put you out in the world to fucking find me, baited a fucking  _trap_ , play your goddamn mind games, you little piece of—”

“I doubt that’s the case,” Kyrano interrupts, but he files the handful of theories away, bricks in the walls of the world around him. “And him?”

This time Ben meets John’s gaze across the room, pale blue eyes and an expression that’s starting to get blank, numb. Scott still reads as bewildered, confused and a little bit frightened, beneath the attempted truculence. The redhead rallies slightly to nod at Kyrano, but he’s still fading, wearing down beneath the exertion of the whole ordeal. Hopefully the tension will start to lessen, if Kyrano can get Gordon to start to calm down.

“Fucking dead man, isn’t he?” Gordon glances at John, and his lip curls, something like hatred. “Throwing around my brother’s name, same colours, wrong shape. Ghost. Yeah, you know what, Johnny, you’re fucking dead, because I crashed the plane that fucking killed you. Me and you and Dad. Middle of fucking nowhere, came down out of a storm that wasn’t supposed to get that big. Too young, shouldn’t’ve been flying. Said I was fine, Dad said he’d take over if shit went sideways. Shit went sideways, but dad went through the cockpit window, so fuck me. And  _you_. Fucker, went and fucking died. And I mean you were really,  _really_  dead, ‘cuz I had to look at you for a goddamn  _half a day_ , me and my broken spine, halfway out of the cockpit and dead from the shoulders down myself. You had a piece of shrapnel so far through your chest it should’ve chopped you in two pieces. You were  _his,”_ Gordon’s eyes flit to Scott, again, “age, barely twenty-two. Right?” The laugh that tears out of the blond now is raw and high, belongs to the hyena that trails around behind the lion.  _“Real_  fucking funny, dead man.”

John’s eyes have widened at this and Kyrano can see him trying to process it, trying to reformat the vomited out spurt of information, complex and wrong and profoundly at odds with what reality actually is—but it’s Scott who speaks.

“How’d you—how’re you walking, though, if you broke your spine?” Scott asks, hesitant. That this is the detail he’d get caught on—Kyrano shakes his head to himself. If he only had a  _brain_.

Gordon’s hands grip the back of the chair, white-knuckled and taut. “You crash a plane and kill your family, maybe the wrong people pull you out of the wreck,” he answers, soft and dangerous. “Maybe the right people, I don’t fucking know. SPECTRUM. They don’t recruit, they  _harvest_. Maybe they give you a new goddamn spine, tell you they can cover  _up_  the fact you killed your family, tell you how to be someone new. New. Better. Useful. Already a goddamn murderer, it’s a binary state. ”

He comes back around to Kyrano now, light blazing in his eyes like fire, like something’s caught on within him, “You SPECTRUM?” he asks, and then continues as though he’s sure it’s true. “You making a point, teaching me a lesson? You and your…what, what’s with Red? He’s a puppet-droid, then, right? Does  _he_  think he’s real? Fucking joke. Biometrics to pass basic scrutiny, but  _really_  break him open and it’s really all biopolymer and catalytic enzymes, brain made of sillicon and iridium. That AI’s been implanted, it’s the one running him, so it’s a…what, it’s like a pilot and a mech. Splinter-consciousness, sub-routine. Is it one of ours? Gotta be one of ours. And you modeled him off my dead brother. Some fucking test. This’s got Scarlet all fucking over it.”

“No,” Kyrano answers, gently. “You make a lot of guesses. I think usually your instincts are better than they have been lately, and I think yours is a world that’s far weirder than what might be imagined. I think you’re just throwing terminology at something that frightens you, hoping to see what sticks.”

“Yeah? Well, fu—’

"Yes, yes,  _fuck me_ , I know. You’ve said,” Kyrano interrupts, starting to get testy. He softens again, quick and careful, and addresses John across the room. “John?” he starts, and then prompts, preempting any more filth from the supposed Agent Jonquil, “Why don’t you tell us a few things about Gordon?”

* * *

Okay.

So.

Psychotic breaks.

Persistent delusions. Auditory hallucinations. Ahedonia and avoidance.

What else? EOS could tell him. If he could shrug himself out of this stupid leaden flack-jacket and speak to her for a second, re-orientate himself.

Voices in his head. Hmm? Maybe not.

Bound to happen. He’s been through considerable strain. People had tried to warn him. Traumatic experiences hammering on the faults in his psyche. Inevitable.

Or maybe, maybe it’s Kyrano who’s delusional?

Yes.

Yes, that makes sense. Isolated individual, history of violence, off the grid for a few years, cut free, personally and professionally. Fits the profile.

But madness in Kyrano doesn’t explain why Steven would call himself  _‘Scott Fucking Tracy’_  or why he has turned the colour of spoiled milk.

And it doesn’t explain Jonquil, or his eerie story, or why he looks like he might be about to cry or laugh or puke all at once.

John swears he can feel it, the spectre of that piece of shrapnel, carving through his chest. In his mind’s eye he can see himself, dead among the wreckage, as his little brother shrieks and sobs and burbles, his body mangled beyond recognition.

Steven’s right. SPECTRUM really know how to fuck with you.

There’s a drawn-out screech, as Jonquil – John can’t afford to think of him by any other name – drags the metal chair across concrete, plants it in front of John and sits into it, so they’re almost knee to knee. “Okay, John-O-Tron, why don’t you tell me  _all_ about myself?”

And John wants to tell him that that’s a mistake, to leave that door closed, that the ghosts can only come in and haunt you if you let them. But fuck it, the poltergeists are already in his home, making themselves comfortable on his couch and maybe it’ll help exorcise them to talk.

Just don’t look into those brown eyes and think how they look oh-so-familiar. Because that’s crazy.

“My brother Gordon,” he says. “Once swam the 100 metres butterfly in 48.99 seconds, that’s less than point one of a second slower than the Olympic record. It wasn’t a race. Nothing official. He had nothing but a snap of a stopwatch to prove it, but he still says it’s one of his proudest moments. He makes enchiladas so hot they’ll burn the roof off the mouth of anyone who isn’t half-salamander like him. He owns the largest, most hideous collection of Hawaiian shirts you have ever seen, and not one pair of socks that match. The last thing I said to him was… was... I don’t remember the last thing I said to him. He genuinely cares about people, wants to know their story, wants to believe that everyone deep down is good. He’s an idiot that way.”

He stops for a moment, exhales through his nose, swallows carefully.

“My brother Gordon is the toughest bastard I have ever known. He put himself back together after the crash, physically and mentally. Not,” he adds, “The crash you’re talking about. He was a passenger and it was a hydrofoil. They were travelling at 140k an hour when the boat disintegrated around them, killed everyone aboard except him.

“The crash didn’t snap his spine, but that just meant he felt  _everything_. The impact crushed his pelvis, broke both femurs, chipped seventeen of his vertebrae. He had full thickness burns covering 30 per cent of his body and they had to drill a hole in his skull to let out the collection of blood that was compressing his brain. He had 18 surgeries. They had to break and re-break 11 separate bones.”

“Hey, man, shut up.” It’s not Jonquil who says this, it’s Steven. If he was the colour of bad milk before, now he’s the colour of rancid cheese. “That never happened.”

But the man sitting in front of him leans forward, and there’s a spark of something, horror or fascination, in his eyes. “Go on.”

John clears his throat. “The doctors didn’t rate him. They said he would never walk again. But they didn’t reckon with Gordon. Up every morning before dawn, dragging himself from one room to the other, hours, weeks trying to re-learn to do the stuff the rest of us take for granted. He would cry when he couldn’t… when he wasn’t able to… But he never quit. Said he still had too much to do, that there was still too much of the world unseen.”

“And did he do it?” There’s a hunger now in the agent’s eyes, or greed or maybe grief. “Did Goldenboy pull himself back together? Or is he on life’s trash heap like the rest of us?”

John leans forward. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Huh.” Jonquil sits back and the light goes out of his eyes. “That bad?”

“No.”

“Funny guy.” But he looks raw and scared and young, and for a moment John is overwhelmed by a memory of a boy, scarred and broken, sitting on the bathroom floor in a pool of piss and shit, sobbing angry tears. John remembers how pathetic he had felt. How he been able to do nothing to help, hadn’t even been able to overcome his own disgust to enter the bathroom, had just run to fetch Dad.

And in that second John wants to reach out, fasten his hands around the boy’s wrists and say, “You are tougher than you know,” just as Dad had done before he had helped Gordon mop up his own shit. 

“Scott,” Kyrano interrupts this train of thought, “Is there something  _you_  want to share with your brothers.”

“That’s not my name.” Steven’s hands are fastened, white knuckled, around the arms of his chair. He’s staring at his knees, won’t raise his head.

Jonquil chuckles and something in his affect shifts, recovers a little of the slimy professional. “You just said it was, man.”

“I lied.” Steven – or whoever – keeps his eyes fixed on that spot on his left knee. “I’m Steven Summers of Hastings, Nebraska. I’m normal. Mediocre, yeah maybe. But not like you lot. I’m not a  _freak_ like you.”

It’s a wild haymaker of an insult, swinging wide to catch them all and not connecting with any of them. Jonquil cackles. “Ooh-hoo. Stevie, you know all the  _bad_ words.”

His persona is rebuilding itself. The kid’s too easy a target.

_“_ Shut up.” _Steven’s_  eyes flicker up at this and then quickly down again to his lap. “You think I’m ‘malleable’, maybe. Stupid, sure. But not stupid enough to play at this mindfuck. You’re not my brothers. Steven…  _I_  don’t have any brothers. And if you were Scott Tracy’s brothers, he wouldn’t have let this happen to you.”

This time Jonquil’s laughter echoes off the pipes. “ _Let us_? Maybe you are Scott, after all. You certainly have his arrogance. Tell me, big bro, when did you ever  _let us_  do anything?”

“I look out for you,” he says it almost too quietly to be heard. “That’s my job. I wouldn’t… I’d never… Gordon’s a 16 year old kid! He thinks about swimming and girls and maybe how to make the bathroom sinks run with chocolate milk, and that’s it. He’s never been in any sort of – Jesus _. Fuck_!”

His arms go across his chest. “I’m Steven Summers of Hastings, Nebraska. Born August 15th 2034. Parents Lauren and Michael Summers, both deceased. Dad was a plumber. Mom was a nurse. Went to Columbia High School,” he says it to himself like it’s a mantra.

John wonders if Scott – his Scott – had ever been this young and vulnerable. There’s the bulk of four years between them. When John was 18, Scott had seemed Teflon-coated, indestructible. He had been already out of school, finishing up his year in England, full of piss and vinegar and stories of the mountains he had climbed and the girls he had nailed. He had showed interest in his dorky little brother’s projects in that callow way he feigned interest in all subjects that bored him. If he ever said anything genuinely insightful on a topic John cared about, John had always chalked it up to parroting Virgil or just plain luck.

Was all of that, that callow asshole personality, bravado? Had it just been some persona Scott had made up to hide the fact that he was a vulnerable, bright kid who didn’t quite know where he fit in the world, who was scared and unsure of himself and worried about  _everything_? To John, who has spent his whole life asking and expecting to be accepted exactly as he is, it sounds exhausting.  

“I’m Steven Summers. 22. Washed out of the navy because of disobedience-”

“Gordon,” Kyrano slips himself back into the conversation. “Where are Alan and Virgil now?”

This silences the kid. It causes Agent Jonquil to go very still too, but not so still that John can’t see that whole body wince. “You’re a piece of work, old man.”

“Answer the question.”

He taps his chin, thoughtfully. “You know, Virgil saw me once. At the hearings. When we tried to take the old man’s company. That was after you did your disappearing act, Scooter.” He jerks a finger in Steven’s direction. “Ivory Tower shit. Virg had to take over. He saw me, across the room. Turquoise said he couldn’t have recognised me, but she was wrong. He knew me. Must have been like seeing a ghost.” He glances up at John. “Never could imagine what that felt like.”

“And Alan?” Kyrano presses.

There’s a tiny smile, ugly and unsettling. His voice is monotone. “Alan’s okay. At MIT, second year. Studying particle physics, rowing crew. Doing well for himself. Got a girlfriend. Pretty thing. Sweet. He doesn’t know yet that she’s one of ours. Doesn’t know that we’ve got planned for him. Gonna take him in, paint his soul a different colour. Got swatches all picked out. Favour red, myself.”

He leaps from the chair, filled with a sudden manic, luminescent glee. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Wanna see?”

“What?” John startles.

But Jonquil is suddenly up and jigging about frantically. “Hey Persephone, please play surveillance footage, subject 74243.  _Alan. Sheppard. Tracy_.”

* * *

MIT still uses chalkboards.  And maybe it’s a functionality thing.  Or an aesthetic thing.  More likely, it’s an elitist thing, like those people who swear by fountain pens or insist that paper books are better than the electronic ones.  One might think that a school at the forefront of science and engineering would rely solely on the most advanced, most outstanding, most impressive technology, but MIT still uses chalkboards.   The institution remains unchanging.  MIT will always be the same.

Everything’s different about Alan.

Well, not really, because the truth is that Gordon’s seen Alan since he died, through video feeds and security footage.  Through the kid’s hacked webcam and call records—except none of that really counts, does it?  He hasn’t  _seen_ Alan.  Not since he last  _saw_ John.  The years have changed him.  The years have changed them both.

Because, for starters, Alan’s taller now.  And maybe that doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that should strike anyone in the room, but it lands, a cold, solid mass at the base of everyone’s stomachs.  Gordon can feel the chill as it crawls through the air.  Whatever trick this is—whoever’s playing this game—it doesn’t belong to the boys in front of him.  Their expressions mirror his own emotion to perfection as all three of them realize that Alan’s become this confident, narrow-shouldered kid who now towers over Gordon.  Maybe even Virgil, too.

And his voice is deeper, that old nasally, nerdy squeal replaced by an equally nerdy, but somehow less insufferable rumble that seems to fall from his lips when he isn’t thinking about it.  Meaningless utterances mix with the click of chalk as Alan scribbles chicken scratch onto the last corner of his board.  He’s lost.  Alone in a lecture hall designed for hundreds, trying to solve the secrets of the universe.

Well.  Almost alone, anyways.  “You know, one of these days you might want to consider leaving the building  _before_ security has to escort you out.”

“I’ve got three minutes,” he says, not breaking his stride.  “Seven, actually.  Ned’s working tonight.”

“This doesn’t look like the sort of question that can be solved in seven minutes.”

“Any question can be solved in seven minutes, Amber,” he says.  “It’s just a matter of how many seven-minute chunks one has to endure before it adds up to anything significant.”

“Well seeing as they erase the blackboards every night, I imagine it takes a while for anything to add up around here.”  

Gordon watches the young girl as she hops up onto the counters, crosses her legs, lets them swing.  “Go back to your room, Alan.”

“Just a few more minutes.”

“Get some  _sleep_.”

Alan’s hand hesitates.  “I just—”

“Alan,” she says, and Gordon knows that voice.  He’s used it plenty of times.  It’s the first thing SPECTRUM equips new recruits with—the voice of persuasion.  “Please.  Tomorrow.  General rule of thumb is that you  _don’t_ want to be awake when the moon is out.”

He still holds the chalk against the board, but it only takes one moment, two, before he hands his head and laughs.  It’s quick.  Fleeting.  But it’s there, and in that instant Gordon wishes more than anything that the girl who makes him laugh weren’t doing it for all the wrong reasons.  “Y’know, my brothers used to tell me that I was made for the moon—whatever that means.”  He sets his chalk down, wipes the dust off on his worn out jeans.  “I always wanted to go, someday.”

“To the moon?”

He gives a nod.  “Mmm.”

“Well you could, you know,” she tells him, because that’s the first step in getting someone to trust you—believe in them.  Encourage their deepest dreams.  Gordon wonders how many times they’ve been through this cycle, wonders just how much of his heart the kid’s given to SPECTRUM already.  “Go to the moon, I mean.  Rumor has it, there’s entire civilizations up there—of course, it’s made up of crazy people.  People without families or meaning or a decent sense of style.”

Alan slides up onto the counter just next to her, looking over all his work like some sort of cypher he knows the key to.  “Check, check, and”—he glances down at his green and red striped shirt and holed jeans—“okay, yeah, three checks.”

“Oh stop it,” she says, laying her head on his shoulder.  Here comes the next step.  Affirmation.  It’s amazing how transparent it all feels from the inside.  “Alan Tracy, you have meaning.  Just look at all this.”  She gestures to his board.  “I assume this all means something.  What is it?”

The kid shrugs.  “Cure for cancer.”

“There’s already a cure for cancer.”

“Mine’s better.”

“I see,” she says.  “And that’s why you’re in here so often?  Redefining radiology?  Researching the illness on a microscopic level?  Running the numbers?”

“I’m in here because no one should have to endure the death of someone they love,” he tells her.  Gordon gets slapped in the face with the tangible intensity that exists between him and his not-brothers.  “Not if there’s someone like me who can stop it from happening.  The world needs less awfulness in it.  My strategies are cheaper, more accessible, easier to transport and—well, I mean, they  _will_ be, when I figure it all out.”

It’s the  _when_  rather than the  _if_.  It’s a fundamentally Alan belief, that everything is a  _when_ , and it’s the sort of thing that causes all three of them—John, Scott, and Gordon—to shift in their seats.  Each of them watches each other, like they’ve just caught sight of their reflections.

“Well,” says Amber.  “I would miss you if you went to the moon—you know that, right?”  Ahh, and there’s the good ol’ reliable dependence.  Right on time.  “I mean, I know I’ll never be family, but—”

“You’re family,” Alan says, and that’s the end of that debate.  “You’re all the family I’ve got left.”

Gordon wonders if they feel it too.  If John and Scott are looking at Alan and wondering how it all could have gone so wrong.

The footage flashes off, and the hologram at the center of the room no longer separates them from one another.  Gordon feels the intense need to wedge some words between them before the silence sits itself right in the center of it all.  “Damn kid.  Always did want to save the world.”

“Never does know how to think realistically,” John agrees.

“He’s the only person I know who thinks every single person on earth deserves to be saved in the first place,” says Scott.

“Yeah,” say John and Gordon.

And it’s in that moment that they realize.  Realize that they’ve all got these fancy stories and these intense motives and a hundred different reasons not to believe one another, but Alan is the same.  MIT still uses blackboards and Alan will always be the same.

Gordon studies the kid he found in a bar, nervously tapping out morse code.  The smuggler—malleable.  Murderer.  “Scott fucking Tracy, huh?”

“And you’re Gordon?” he asks right back.

“Think so.”

“So,” says John.  “Now what?”

* * *

It’s such a  _John_  question. Now what? As though there could possibly be a logical course of action to follow the fact that the three—four, if one counts Ben, who’s starting to tweak at some deep sense of recognition in Scott’s psyche— four of them have gone and gotten muddled up across three separate realities, crossed the streams in the worst sort of way.

He’s never really been one for Dickens, but he knows the basics, and maybe this is his Christmas Carol. Two futures, branching out in front of him, typified in these two strangers. Two different ideals, formatted to look like his brothers, all grown up. Gordon’s still standing near to John, below the flickering holo display where he’d pulled up footage of their brother—and now that Scott’s seen them for who they are, it’s impossible to  _unsee_  it. Gordon’s got that crookedy nose and their father’s jawline, even if he’s also got that manic rictus of a grin that flashes up every now and again and those bright, frightening eyes. John’s eyes are a blue to match Scott’s own, even if he looks tired and careworn and intensely stressed, caught up in something he thinks is more important than his family.

Probably none of this is real. Probably he’s dropped off at the gate, waiting for that stupid flight. And hey, maybe in a minute the curious stranger across the back of the bench is gonna reach over and tap him on the shoulder to let him know it’s time to board. And instead of a mysterious redhead, Scott’s going to discover that actually, beneath the hood, the stranger is an ashy blond, that his eyes are grey, that there’s nothing about his narrow features that should put him even remotely in mind of John.

Alan’s pretty convincing, though. Alan, as a universal constant, like gravity. No matter the world, Alan’s not going to have turned into a smiling maniac in the service of some shadowy secret agency, or a fugitive on the run, protecting his partnership with a rogue AI. It almost makes Scott’s reality, where he’s just a dumb kid who ran away from home, frightened by his father’s ambitions—really, it almost seems kind of tame.

So maybe Scott’s not sure who’s world he’s in anymore. Whatever the mechanism, he’s come untethered, been cut adrift, left to wander in the gaps between his own potential future. On the face of it, with Gordon in control, it seems as though it must be Gordon’s world’s he’s found himself in.

Except—“So…” he starts, haltingly, because he’s not entirely sure of his footing. “So, hang on though. If—oh man, I’m gonna screw this up—if  _he’s_  not your John, because your John’s gone—”

Gordon’s brown eyes fix on him, bright. “Yeah?” There’s that awful smile again, the dark parody of  _his_  Gordon’s goofy grin. “You wanna know about my Scott, junior? Because he’s a  _real_ fucking piece of work, lemme tell you.”

“No,” Scott answers, hastily. He’s not sure he wants to know about either of their Scotts. “But…like, if he’s not your John, then is that also not your EOS?”

This gets John’s attention, gets him to sit up and glance at Gordon, whose eyes have narrowed. “Interesting thought,” he starts, and there’s a faint edge of eagerness in him now. “You said you’d run into her before. If it was in the past four months, then she’s been in my sphere since then, and I can account for her whereabouts, vouch for what she’s been doing.”

Gordon scoffs. “Last week she blew a hydrodam in Switzerland, flooded a few square kilometers, did a cool twenty million in property damages, and killed about thirty people.”

Scott winces at this, but John seems to be able to consider it in the abstract and lights up a bit at the news, however grim. “No. Not my EOS. Something else, maybe something similar, but not who I’ve got with me now.” A beat, and then, “She could help work this out. Whatever this is, however this has happened,  _clearly_  something’s gone wrong. We should—”

“There’s no  _we_ ,” Gordon interrupts, short and brutal. “I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. And I’m still not convinced that this isn’t some sort of bullshit training exercise, some sort of puzzle I’m supposed to crack, but—”

Ben’s been quiet, letting the three of them hash it out, but he speaks up now, speculative as he addresses the room, “I wonder,” he starts, with his gaze falling on Gordon, “you’ve rattled off a great deal of nonsense, like you come from a world where duplicates and doubles aren’t things that surprise you, that these things that have other explanations. If one of those explanations is that there are many possible worlds, and that reality is woven together and interleaved with threads of time crossing and recrossing—then are you quite sure that  _you’re_  in your right world?”

“Quit it with your woo, Confucius,” Gordon snaps. “I’m driving, aren’t I? I’ve made all the calls, called all the shots, we’re in  _my_ goddamn territory. Cloudbase. Agent Jonquil. You’re not gonna be getting in  _my_  head, Benny, so don’t even—”

“But are you  _sure_ , though?” John asks, interrupting. There’s a bright spark in him now, eager, and Scott’s chest pangs with the thought of his younger brother, and the way this is just the sort of idea he’d love to seize upon, sink his teeth into. “Jonquil. It’s a codename, right? Maybe you’re the wrong Jonquil.”

Gordon glares at him, but Scott can see a tic of his jaw, a quick, subtle tell. Doubt, maybe. Scott wonders if anyone else saying the same thing would get to him, or if the key is in the fact that it’s being said by his dead brother. Maybe that’s John’s angle. John’s wickedly smart, after all, and this version of him seems to be at least a little more socially savvy than what Scott would expect.

Maybe there’s a bit of good cop/bad cop to be played, here, so Scott pipes up. “Really? This is all so fucked up, I don’t see why you think it makes any sense to make it even  _crazier_. I mean, does that hold up?The GDF knew who he was, the chick who flew the plane. It’d be easy to prove, too—”

John’s eyes flick across the room, catch Scott’s gaze for a second. For the briefest, tiniest moment he thinks he sees a flash of approval, a subtle, barely there nod, before the redhead continues. “Sure, maybe. What’s the risk in proving it, though? Because…well, I mean. It seems like it’d be a bad idea, in this sort of organization, not to be who you’re supposed to be.”

“I dunno, man. This is already all kinds of screwy. Quit trying to make it weirder.”

If this were really Agent Jonquil and not Gordon, maybe this wouldn’t be so easy. “You fuckers think you’re playing with me?” he challenges, and scowls. “Persephone,” he says aloud again, his voice rining off the metal surfaces in the room. “Display Profile: Agent G. Jonquil. Clearance: #F4CA16.”

The screen flickers to life as whatever system Jonquil’s addressed complies with the request. And a face fills the screen.

* * *

A face flashes up on screen, abutted by ID codes, biometric information and mission data.

And John’s heart sinks.

Because that face belongs to Gordon. 

Maybe the eyes are harder. Maybe the mouth is softer and more cruel. Maybe the cast of his face is older in the picture, or maybe that’s just a trick caused by the hard sneer the photo’s wearing or by the lurking uncertainty in the Gordon in front of him – the real Gordon? – that makes him seem younger.

Gordon begins to laugh. It’s high pitched and reedy, brittle with hysteria. “Oh man,” he says, “You really had me going there, Johnny.” He wipes a tear of mirth from his eye. “You really did. You had me thinking for a cotton pickin’ minute that it really wasn’t me that’s done all those terrible things.”

Then he shrieks so loudly his voice breaks and snatches up the button that has its fist around John’s heart and John’s breathing stops and Scott’s on his feet yelling, “Gordon, don’t!” and the button is in Gordon’s hand and…

And he dashes it to the ground and stamps on it, crushing it. He keeps on stamping on it until it’s no more than a couple of shattered fragments of silica and plastic, until Scott’s got his arm around his shoulders and chest, restraining him.

“Fuck you!” Gordon snarls. “Fuck you, Scott! Fuck you, Johnny, you fucking dead man. And fuck Dad for not seeing I couldn’t handle it, fuck him for going through that window. Fuck you all.” He shudders. “And fuck them. Fuck them if they think they’re going to do to any of my brothers what they did to me.”

The fight goes out of him. His head drops onto his chest and it seems like Scott is holding him up more than he is holding him back. “Gordo,” Scott’s head dips until his brow touches his brother’s shoulder.

“Don’t call me that. Don’t you fucking dare call me that! I don’t deserve– ” His voice cracks a little. “ _Fuck!”_

Kyrano is out of his chair. “We need to go,” he says.

John might have expected to meet resistance at this, but Gordon just nods. He’s trembling. “Yeah. Yeah, you do. They’ll be coming for you soon. They’ll be expecting  _results._  And the eggheads will want to get their hands on John. They’ll want to operate. You can’t…” He heaves a sigh and John can see Scott’s hand around his chest rise a full inch as his lungs fill with air. “Your stuff is in the room two doors along. It’s unguarded. The code is -”

“You’re going to let us  _go_?” Scott blurts before he can finish.

“No, he’s coming with us.” Kyrano says, and Gordon’s head jerks up like he’s a marionette whose strings have been yanked. He stares at Kyrano in astonishment.

“We can debate what world or worlds we are in later,” Kyrano says, “When we’re out of danger. Scott, help Gordon reacquire our gear. I will assist John.”

Gordon looks rooted to the floor. He opens his mouth to object, but then Scott claps him on the shoulder and runs to the door. “Come on, Gordon. Show me where to go,” Gordon follows Scott, his movements wooden.

John’s still tied into the rig meant to stop his heart. Kyrano joins him, kneels, begins to remove the clamps and wiring that keep him tied down. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” John says, automatically.

Kyrano pauses. “John, I can’t do my job without accurate information. Don’t try to mollify me. I need a sit-rep, now.”

John shrugs. “I’m tired. I could sleep for 18 hours. I’ve got a bruised chest but no serious injuries. It’s all been… a lot. But for now I can keep going.”

“Good. If at any point you think you can’t, I need to know. Yes?”

John nods.

Another clamp comes undone. “This is a precarious position we’re in. Scott lacks experience. I can get him where he needs to be, given time, but Gordon… These people have a powerful hold over him. We’ve disrupted but not broken it, and unless we can get him away from here they will simply exert their influence over him again and take him back. I know something about that.” A shadow passes over his face.

“What should I do?”

“Call him by his name as much as you can, and don’t be fooled by his bravado. Gerad Jonquil may be slick and cynical and in control, but Gordon Tracy is vulnerable. SPECTRUM didn’t teach him to overcome his grief, they just excised it and stuffed their own programming into the spaces that remained. Cut those parts of him away – and we must cut them away – and what’s left underneath is not much more than a scared 17 year old boy, still grieving the loss of his family.”

He concentrates on unhooking electrodes.

“They need a leader, John. Not me. I know you’re tired and you’re sick and to ask you is unfair, but I need you to step up. I need a Thunderbird.”

There’s so much John could say to that. About how he lost that part of him when it was ripped away in a hospital in Zurich, or maybe in the parking lot underneath it. About how he’s not that boy anymore. About how that person - naïve, idealistic, trusting of authority – is not the person he needs to be to protect himself and EOS.

But the likelihood is that Kyrano knows all this already, so instead John says, “Get this strait jacket off me.”

“Good lad.”

He’s shed the last piece of the lead coat when Scott and Gordon come barreling through the door. Scott shuts it behind him. “Problem,” he says, “Company. On their way.”

“Persephone, identify the approaching agents,” Gordon addresses the computer system.

“There are three security agents approaching from the corridor 11b. They are accompanied by Agent Abigail Chalk.” The sweet voice that emerges from the hologlobe is most certainly EOS’s. She’s wasted no time engaging with the SPECTRUM systems. John wants to warn her to be careful, that they don’t know what they’re dealing with.

Gordon doesn’t even seem to have noticed. He’s gone grey-pale and his hands are twitching in an anxious way that is most un-Gordon-like. “Back in the chairs,” he barks. “Now! This is Agent Chalk. You think I’m scary?”

As a matter of fact, no he doesn’t. Right now, he seems frantic and terrified. But at Kyrano’s nod, both John and Scott resume their seats.

“Don’t talk. Don’t think. Don’t blink in a suspicious manner, because she’ll know.” Gordon pulls at his shirt collar. “I’m Agent Gerad Jonquil. I’m Agent Gerad Jonquil. I feel nothing. Nothing can hurt me. I-feel-nothing-nothing-can-hurt-me.  _AgentGeradjonquil_.”

“Gordon! Stop.” Kyrano’s mouth becomes a hard line.

Gordon shakes his head, pacing. “She’ll know. She’ll know if I don’t. _AgentGeradjonquil. AgentGerad_ -”

“Good morning, Agent Jonquil.”

The name Chalk suits the woman who steps through the door at the head of the security party. He’s never seen a person more colourless. She has fine patrician features and silver grey hair cropped in a symmetrical bob. The heels of her black pumps clack across the concrete floor.

For a moment Gordon seems to freeze, then he comes unstuck and that greasy, obsequious smile returns, the Jonquil persona slotting into place like armour. “Ma’am.” John feels a creep up his spine.

“I heard you were interrogating the prisoners. What have learned for me?”

“Nothing, so far, Ma’am. But I’ll – ”

“Nothing?” Agent Chalk takes a slow circle of the room, stops in front of John. Her eyes are the colour of wet paper. Her hand, when it ghosts across John’s knuckles, is cold and dry. He skin crawls. “That’s not like you, Jonquil. They haven’t told you anything?”

“Nothing of value, ma’am.”

“Nothing about,” she places a finger to her lips, “Gordon Cooper Tracy?”

Gordon’s smile freezes. “M-Ma’am?”

She turns back to him, smiles mirthlessly. “Do you remember Gordon Cooper Tracy, Agent Jonquil?”

Gordon takes a step back. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Who was he?”

“He was - ?” Gordon’s voice splinters, “He was the first person you ever ordered me to kill.”

“And why did I order that, Agent Jonquil?”

“B-because he was weak, Ma’am. Weak and pathetic and broken.”

“Yes,” she circles around Gordon and her hand brushes his sleeve. Her voice is silk, but it’s the silk of a garrote sliding around the neck.  “Yes. Poor thing. He had been abandoned. In so  _much_ pain.

Gordon shivers, like a horse irritated by a doctor fly, and John wants to look away. He glances at Kyrano for help, but two of the three security agents have circled around to behind his chair. 

“Do you remember that pain, Agent Jonquil?”

“ _Yes_ ,” says Gordon.

“He begged to die, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“He was weak, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“But you are not weak. We took your pain from you, didn’t we? Made you strong. Remade you.”

“Yes,” his voice is barely a whisper.

“Hey!” The third security agent keeps Scott pinned to his chair. Scott looks ready for a fight. The fingers of his left hand beat out a rhythmless tattoo on the arm of the chair.  

_“You feel nothing. Nothing can hurt you.”_

“I feel nothing. Nothing can hurt me.” He says it with the intensity of a prayer. “I feel nothing.”

“Stop this!” shouts John, but the woman just smiles, and Gordon doesn’t even seem to hear him. He seems mesmerized by Agent Chalk.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Agent Gerad Jonquil.”

And the worst thing is that John believes him.

“What are you?”

“I’m your best agent.”

“Who are these men?”

“They’re – ” Gordon breaks off, his head twitches to the side and once again John is reminded again of a horse bothered by a fly.

It’s the noise that’s getting to him, he realises, the noise of Scott’s frantic, purposeless rapping on his chair.

Except it’s not purposeless. It’s a rhythm. The same rhythm repeated over and over.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

_F-A-B_

* * *

I feel nothing.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

Nothing can hurt me.

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

The is a single chill that scurries down his spine.  It starts in his between the shoulder blades, T2 vertebrae, same place he always feels it, and it leaves behind this cold, static crawl, like freezing needles that all want to take a turn sticking him.  He doesn’t dare think about all of the needles.

I feel nothing.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

Nothing can hurt me.

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

And there’s a question, looming in the air somewhere.  He knows better than to leave one of her questions unanswered, and yet he can’t quite manage a sound. There’s too much.  There’s too many people.  Sometimes he wonders if she just carries an army in her back pocket because she knows that he can’t handle it.  “Who are these men?”

I feel nothing.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

Nothing can hurt me.

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

John Tracy.  October 8th, 2040.  Scott Tracy April 4th, just one year prior.  Scott puts an obscene amount of milk in his cereal and sometimes John can’t fall asleep, so he’ll just stay up and watch old documentaries.  When they were in high school, John supposedly followed Scott around like a wounded puppy, but the truth is that Scott would have hovered whether John wanted him to or not.  Scott’s had his pilot’s license since the day he turned sixteen.  John was published in Scientific American at age nine.  566-84-9922.  566-73-4953.  Carpenter.  Glenn.  Silver and Gold.  Dead.  Missing.  Gone.  “They’re—“

I feel nothing.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

Nothing can hurt me.

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

Scott’s always been easy to read—easy as Alan, some days.  Especially when he get’s all wound up like this, he’s got this feeling about him.  Like a coil waiting to spring.  Sometimes it’s exhausting just to be around him.  This, perhaps, is Gordon’s—Gerad’s— _his_ final confirming factor for all of his uncertainties.  SPECTRUM can make the crippled walk again, but they cannot match the feeling of Scott Tracy when he needs to _go_.

“Agent Jonquil,” barks Chalk, and he feels himself slip into the name.  He’s in a perfectly cut suit, wearing the latest technology, standing on his own two feet.  Gordon couldn’t do this.  Gordon was weak.  “I will not ask again.”

I feel nothing.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

Nothing can hurt me.

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

It’s as if Scott taps on his eardrums themselves, popping and clicking, each strike a shock that sends Gerad’s heart racing.  Or maybe it’s Gordon’s heart, but Gordon is dead.

Thing is, John’s dead too.  Except he’s not.  Perhaps his is not the only resurrection.

“ _Jonquil_ ,” snaps Chalk.

 I feel nothing.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

Nothing can hurt me.

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

I feel nothing.

Nothing can hurt me.

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

_F-A-B_

And before he’s entirely sure what’s happened, Chalk is pinned to the wall, she can’t breathe, and three armed guards are about cold on the floor around him. His memories are black, but his temper is a bright, blazing red, because that’s the thing about Agent Gerad C. Jonquil.  He’s got nothing on Gordon Tracy.  “You think he’s gone?” Gordon hisses.  “You think you killed him?  You think you can just  _erase my hard drive_?  Reimage me—start over?  Well guess what, Chalk.  You didn’t kill Gordon, nuh-uh.  He’s been in there, waiting, fighting.  Jonquil didn’t  _replace_ him.  Jonquil’s been strutting around while Gordon fought longer,  _harder_  to get himself back on his feet—and d’you know what, Agent Chalk?  He’s  _stronger.”_

She struggles, but the fact of the matter is that she’s only prepared to take on Jonquil.  “Do you know what the difference is between me and him?” he asks, and he laughs.  Doesn’t wait for an answer.  Her face is turning veiny and purple.  “I feel  _everything_ , Chalk, and nothing can hurt me.  Not even you.  So d’you  _really_ wanna know who these guys are?”

_Short, short, long, short. Short, long. Long, short, short, short._

_Dot, dot, dash, dot. Dot, dash, dash. Dash, dot, dot, dot._

He lands a knee to her stomach, watches her crumble to the ground.  The morse code is still in his ears and he ticks his head, strains, shakes himself free.  “They’re my goddamn brothers.”

It’s another jerk of his head, this time towards the door, and one, two, three members of his party dart out into the hallway.  He follows close behind, knows that  _holy shit_  is he going to pay hell for this.  He considers, briefly, whether or not they really are in his own universe, or dimension, or whatever, but of course they are.  They’re watching  _his_ Alan, running away from  _his_ SPECTRUM, with  _his_ face in their records.  He wishes that one of the other two would be left to stay behind, but he knows that’s now how it works.  He’s read enough of John’s shitty sci-fi to know that not everyone gets to leave.

“Which way?” Scott’s voice is frantic.  Gordon can’t remember the last time he’s heard a frantic Scott.  Maybe Scott will stay with him, at least.

He shakes the thought away, pulls a map up on his lenses.  The model renders and moves with him and he calls out the word, “Left!”

* * *

Scott Tracy’s eyes aren’t supposed to be green.

But the earpiece would’ve been too obvious. Green eyes he’d figured he could get away with.

Not that they’ve done him much good. Certainly they’re nothing to envy.

And they’d looked better on John, anyway.

He doesn’t know how the hell John  _sees_  through these things, because his field of vision is a mess of data, EOS scrolling and scrambling and trawling through SPECTRUM systems, who the hell knows how. Scott has to concentrate so hard that it makes his head hurts, just to squint past the endless streams and streaks of code. He fumbles in his pocket for the earpiece he’d retrieved from the room down the hall, crams it into his ear, but it fills with the sound of EOS, rapidly filling John in on what she’s doing, what she’s discovering as she goes, all the holes she’s punching into whatever she finds as she spreads into the ship like a cancer. Rather than interrupt, Scott yanks it out again, crams it back in his pocket.

When Gordon calls left, of course Scott veers left, but down the short, dark corridor, the staircase before him slants downward and not upward, gives him pause. Because the plane they’d arrived in had landed on an upper deck. Definitely an upper deck, and he’d definitely only had a few minutes to stare around before a mechanical, metallic cacophony had shuddered through the tiny craft and it had been lowered down through a hatch into a pressurized interior. From the white plane, he had definitely been hustled inward and  _down_ , into the bowels of this massive, impossible airship.

“Where’re we—” Scott starts, but of course it wouldn’t mean anything. This place is monstrous, a maze. The bottom of the staircase puts them on a long, narrow catwalk, stretching out above an engine bay. It’s not as loud as Scott expects. It’s a raw, metallic hum, but he  _feels_  it more than he hears it, feels vibration shuddering up through the soles of his shoes, the air alive around him. Everything smells and tastes of grease and electricity. He has no idea where he’s going, no idea what to do. Gordon should be out in front, but Gordon’s clattering down the stairs behind him, answering questions being put to him over Ben’s shoulder. “Shit. Oh  _shit_ —”

Gordon’s growl at his heels is animal, angry. “ _Forward,_ Scotty, you stupid dumbfuck, go go  _go_ —”

“ _Stop_.”

This voice is firm, sterling silver, pure command. This is the voice of someone who’s used to taking charge, and it takes a minute for Scott to realize that it’s  _John’s._

One of John’s hands reaches out and catches Scott’s shoulder, the other butts up against Gordon’s chest. Ben drops back, squeezes past Gordon to take up the rear. He turns back to the staircase and finds a door to slam shut behind them. It bolts shut with a solid metal clang. Ben’s pilfered weaponry off the security agents that Gordon had left broken and bloodied on the floor of the interrogation room. He looks different  in the half-light,  _deadly_ , now that he’s visibly armed.

_Kyrano._

Scott realizes this in a flash of insight, and then has to keep himself from staring, wondering how the hell he didn’t see it before.

But John’s fingers clasping his shoulder are warm and steady and turning back, Scott can see that Gordon’s been stopped too, and that John’s other hand hasn’t left the place above his heart, holding him still. “Calm down, okay? Both of you. Take a minute. Breathe. We’re gonna be all right. EOS has us covered.”

Gordon’s laugh is still that shrill, hyena sound. “Like  _fuck_  she has, no way no how, these are SPECTRUM’s systems, she can’t possibly—”

“She’s got it, Gordon,” John interrupts, firmly. “Deep breaths, okay? D’you know autogenic breathing? In, three seconds, hold three seconds, out three seconds, hold three seconds. Repeat. Do it four times.”

“S’fucking bullshit, though, isn’t it, goddamn fucking yoga breathing, what the hell’m---”

“ _Gordon_. Do it.”

Scott’s reminded once again that this can’t possibly be his version of his little brother, because John’s never been one to take charge of anything. John separates himself, pulls himself away, puts himself outside and above and isolated, observing but not commenting, and almost  _never_ interceding.

But John’s hand is still on his shoulder, still anchoring him at that point of contact, and Gordon’s stopped talking and started breathing. Ben’s attention is divided between the door behind them, and John, holding his brothers together by sheer force of will.

Scott’s newly purchased comm is crammed in his pocket and it vibrates, then chimes loudly. He pulls it out and hands it to John, wordless. John breaks contact to take the device, but the ghost of his touch remains, warm and reassuring.

“Thanks.”

Scott swallows and nods. “Y-yeah. I’ve, uh. I’ve got your contacts. Can you make her stop—?” He waves his hand vaguely in the air in front of his face. “I can’t see anything.”

“EOS, clear displays A and B, ping Jonquil’s HUD, reformat and update rendering parameters, then switch displays.” John’s hand leaves Gordon’s chest and he gently plucks a pair of tortoiseshell glasses from the bridge of Gordon’s nose, puts them on and then squints, blinks a few times, slightly disoriented as he comments, “…oh, these’re—huh. Prescription. Hyperopia? You really  _are_  him, aren’t you? Gordon Cooper Tracy. Far-sighted and too stubborn to tell anybody about it. People think he doesn’t read much because he’s  _dumb_ , truth is he can’t actually see the pages. Gives him headaches. More of a tactile learner anyway. Right?”

Gordon only nods. Still breathing.

This is something Scott didn’t know about his  _own_  Gordon, but suddenly it explains so much. It’s exactly the sort of thing John would notice, too.  Now he’s gaping at John and knows it, but out of the corner of his eye he could swear he sees a faint smile cross Kyrano’s features.

Scott’s a big brother. He flatters himself—even in this state, even though he’s flung himself out of his family’s life and into madness and danger and a whole other next-door-reality—that he’s a good older brother. That he’d do whatever it took to look after his siblings, that if it came down to it,  _really_  came down to it. That he would step up. That he’d just know what to do, that instinct would kick in and he’d come through. Take the helm, take the lead, and get them all safely through the deep dark wood and out the other side.

But the thing is, John’s a big brother, too. And right now, he’s bigger than Scott is, older and wiser and calmer and cooler, and without Scott needing to move or speak or do anything, John’s hand has come up to clasp Scott’s shoulder again. Scott wonders if he’s ever done this for any of his own brothers, whether he’d ever been possessed of the secret skill, the ease to spread that calm and quiet by merit of a single, simple touch.

He’s not sure. But he doubts it.

Scott licks his lips and calls up something from the heart of him. He quashes down that part of himself that still wants to believe this is a dream, or a nightmare, or some sort of disconnected state that is definitely not reality—and summons up the name he hasn’t been able to say yet, only been able to think— but he says it now, and addresses his big-little (little-big?) brother, “John, what’re we gonna do now?”

* * *

Scott is looking at him. And the eyes are all wrong and the hair’s shorter than it’s been in years, and the voice has been softened and buffed to sound harder, more streetwise. But it is definitely  _Scott_ that’s looking at him, same widow’s peak, same sunken in dimples, same nutcracker jaw. It’s only strange that it took John so long to realise that this was his brother, snipped from the timeline and stuck onto John’s reality like an acetate.

_Bizarre._

But it’s the  _way_ that Scott’s looking at him. That eager mixture of hope and trepidation. Scott’s only ever looked at one person like that.

Scott’s only ever looked at  _Dad_ like that. 

“John, what’re we gonna do now?”

It’s the sort of question John’s trained his whole life for, the kind he was born to answer. Maybe it’s because it’s Scott asking, maybe because he’s reminded so strongly of Dad, but for a moment he’s swallowed up by the memory of his last night sitting at Dad’s desk, wondering if he would ever be whole, ever be himself, again.

He pushes the memory down and finds that Scott’s caught hold of his arm, his hand falling over John’s. “Tell me what you want me to do,” he says.

John nods.

By contrast to Scott, who’s gone still, and calm, and expectant, Gordon’s thrumming like a plucked guitar string. “We need to go-o,” he whines.

Kyrano was right. Jonquil’s been at the controls for two long. As Gordon, he doesn’t really know what to do with himself.  _I may be the dead man here, but you’re the one who really came back to life._

“They’ll catch us,” says Gordon. “If we stay here. We’ve got to go. I’m not… I won’t go back… I won’t let them turn me back into him…”

Disassociation. Him versus me. That’s maybe going to be a problem down the line, but it’s something for the shrinks to sort out and there are bigger problems right now. Gordon’s fizzing with nervous energy, burning through reserves he doesn’t have to spare.

_I need to get him out of here, before he crashes completely._

“We will,” he says, his voice stern. “But we’re going to do it the smart way. We do this the wrong way we’re only going to get ourselves killed. Talk to me, EOS.”

EOS is a plume of grey smoke winding through the hornet’s nest, confusing the drones. Which is good, because Gordon kicked the hornet’s nest pretty damn hard. She’s keeping Chalk and her agents corralled, damping down emergency responses, hiding their progress from security sweeps, keeping them hidden.

She’s finding other things to. Wonders and horrors and treasures and doors even she won’t open. He tells her to stockpile all the information she gleans for later. For now they need to focus on escape.

_“We are currently at fifty thousand feet. SPECTRUM does not keep drone ships aboard. As an added security measure all air transport requires a human pilot. I can signal a drone transport to come from the ground, but I will need you to access the Z band transponder on level 33 manually. Otherwise, there’s a hangar on sub-level 52.”_

“Can you fly?” he asks Scott.

“Anything with wings,” he says, with a shrug, plain fact. “Get me specs?” EOS puts up the specs for a small cruiser online. Scott blinks a couple of times, still not used to the HUD. “Yeah, yeah, no problem.”

“Yeah, problem!” Blurts Gordon. “Big problem. SPECTRUM’s pilots are the Angel Force. And the Angel Force is made up exclusively of  _hot girls.”_

“Excuse me?” John blinks at the ludicrousness of this, but EOS confirms it, bringing up the profiles of 30 pilots, all female, all with perfectly symmetrical faces.  

“Are you a hot girl, Scotty?” Gordon bellows. “Could you pass for a hot girl? Do you have a blow up doll stashed in that tatty duffel of yours? Because as far as I see it even if HALLEY9000 creates the most impressive, authentic profile ever devised, the hangar guards are going to look at it, look at Scott and say, ‘Thank you very much, Angel Cacophony, but where are your breasts?”

Analog problems. Damn.

There are guards coming down the passage behind them and so John decides he needs to deal with this little wrinkle on the move. “Let’s keep moving,” he says, as EOS charts their route for him on his borrowed HUD. “If we’re stopped, Agent Jonquil is taking me and Scott to the interrogation chamber on sub-level 42. Kyrano is your escort. EOS will guarantee our identities. Walk. Slowly.”

Something deep in Gordon’s make up seems to respond to the voice of authority. He takes a step forward, then another and by the time he’s rounded the next corner, the Jonquil swagger has recovered itself somewhat. Scott and John fall in behind with Kyrano crowding behind them, every inch the good soldier.

Like workers inside a hive, none of the SPECTRUM staff they pass pay them the least bit of attention. Too scared to be curious, he thinks. They step into an elevator unchallenged and plummet towards sub-level 52.

They emerge onto a wide concourse. Through the glass-fronted corridor they can see the hangar below. It’s big enough to house all six thunderbirds ten times over.

Both the concourse and the hangar are teeming with people. An angel in her flight suit and helmet escort a prisoner with a canvas sack over his head towards the brig. A pair of labcoats eat lunch while watching as the planes are loaded onto the hydraulic elevator and lowered into the airlock below.  Guards with sub-machine guns patrol every thirty feet.

One of these gives their group a hard look when they linger too long and they’re forced to keep moving. He can feel the tension rising off Gordon like heat as they approach the hangar gate. “It’s okay,” he whispers, “We’ve got you covered,” and prays he has. “Just keep walking. You’re going to tell them there’s been a security breach.”

Gordon stops about twenty feet short of the gate, just as the Angel escorting the prisoner slinks by.

_Fuck,_  thinks John. “Gordon. It’s okay. Keep walking. A security breach on level 22.”

“Uh-huh,” says Gordon, “Security beach. Very serious. Super… distracting.” His head nearly twists 180 degrees to follow the angel’s sashay.

Scott thumps him. “Gordon!” but cannot help but sneak a look himself.  

“Totally, uh-huh, totally… I totally know that ahhh– ”He breaks ranks, taking off after the angel, forcing his ‘prisoners’ to follow.  

A moment later Gordon has trotted up to the woman and thrown his arm around her neck. “Hey there, gorgeous.”

“Oh man, he’s snapped.” Scott voices what John’s afraid to say. “Grab him.”

“Unhand me please, I am escorting this man for questioning,” says the angel in imperious German. She shakes Gordon off, affronted.

Gordon sighs and keeps talking, walking backwards in front of her. “Oh, come on, Angelcakes. Don’t be so chilly. I’m just being friendly.” He grins a wicked grin. “And I’d hate to have to tell my employers that there’s such a fox in their henhouse so soon after you got here.”

It’s a blatant and completely empty threat and not one the woman is likely to respond to unless… unless…

The angel stiffens and then nods. Pushing her prisoner in front of her, she allows Gordon to usher her down a side corridor.

“What the - ? Who is she?” whispers Scott.

“I have a sort of a hunch,” John replies and he can feel his own pulse picking up. He catches Scott by the shirt sleeve and drags him after Gordon and the woman.

They slide out of sight of the main concourse and prying cameras and the lady removes her helmet, revealing bright blue eyes, a tumble of golden hair and an extremely peeved expression. “What. Is. It?”

John feels a grin tugging at the corner of his lips. It doesn’t matter what branch of reality you’re in. Some souls are unmistakable.

Gordon grins too, and it’s not his former jittery, electric dazzle, it’s something all-together different, brighter, cheekier, far too pleased with itself. “ _Why, Lady Penelope_ ,” he drawls. “ _Whatever are you doing here_?”

Lady Penelope’s smile is icy. “Jonquil. How... delightful.”

“What are you doing here?” he repeats and it’s clear they have history, actually Gordon’s looking at her like she’s the only person in the world.

She’s looking at him like he’s something brown and sticky she’s stepped in.

“Snooping,” comes the tart reply, “Word on the wire is that SPECTRUM’s been throwing its weight around again, snatched up two poor kids in a Russian airport. No warrant. We wanted to see just exactly what you took and why.” She gives him a frosty up and down. “If I’d known the cockroaches came below the fifth level, I wouldn’t have bothered. Are you going to turn me into your masters, for a pat on the head?”

Gordon gives a dark laugh. “Not an easy move sneaking onto Cloudbase, or a wise one. That sort of thing has consequences, Lady P.”

“I’m resourceful. And I’m not afraid of you, Jonquil.” There’s tension like a wound spring coiled through every inch of Lady Penelope’s slender frame.

“Maybe you  _ought_ to be,” says Gordon.

Scott clears his throat. “Sorry, who is this?” he says.

Gordon blinks. “Oh, of course. Silly me. Gentlemen, let me introduce Lady Penelope Creighton Ward. A constant thorn in SPECTRUM’s side and an old _acquaintance_  of mine.” He grins. “And this,” he swats the hooded man on the behind, “Must be her faithful sidekick, Parker.”

In that moment John notices three things:

  1. That the hooded man is considerably broader across the shoulders than the Parker he remembers.
  2. That the grunt that issues from beneath the mask is distinctly un-cockney.
  3. That the man in the hood has just seized Gordon, twisted his arm behind his back and slammed him into the wall.



“ _You’re coming home with me, asshole!”_

The hood falls away.

John gapes. “I know you,” he says, “You’re that Sergeant who rescued me. Tillerton.”

Sergeant Tillerton doesn’t hear him, because at the same moment Scott gives a surprised yelp and his arm smacks John hard in the stomach. “Holy shit! Virgil?!”

“Do I know you?” says Virgil Tracy.

And slumps forward, as Kyrano knocks him unconscious.

***

If there  _is_  a rift in the universe—and it’s beginning to look more and more like there is, because his big brother is small, and his dead brother is alive, and now Virgil’s here, out cold, a wide-shouldered hunk of Tracy laying around in SPECTRUM’s Cloudbase—then Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward is definitely at the center of whatever crumbling, edgeless existence they currently occupy.  That’s really the only explanation for how their paths seem to cross so often, really the only reason he could possibly feel such a pull to the young lady with the long blonde hair.

“Oh, I really wish you hadn’t done that,” she whines.  Then, looking to Kyrano and with considerably less whine, “ More to the point,  _you’re_ going to wish you hadn’t done that.”

Her charge is swift and determined, in that same way she does everything else, except that’s the thing about Lady Penelope.  She has a pattern.  An algorithm.  Gordon’s not entirely conscious of just what that algorithm is, but when he sees her, he knows how to do the math—knows  exactly what she’s about to do next.  He senses the twitch of her finger before she swings a fist.  He hears the click of her heel before she kicks.  Fighting with Penelope isn’t really fighting at all.  It’s a formula.  It’s a fact.  “C’mon, Pen.  You could try a little harder, I think—“

And then he misses one, a miscalculation, a hook of her ankle around his leg just before he lands flat on his back.  His air leaves him and before he can catch it, there’s a heel pressed into his sternum.  She looks down on him, and he can practically  _hear_ her debating whether or not to spit.    

“That’s Lady Penelope, to you,” she says.  “Now.  Your choice, Jonquil.  I can crush your ribcage, right here, right now, or you can tell me everything I want to know about these two boys.”

“And  _then_  you’ll crush my ribcage, right?”

“Depends on what you tell me.”

It’s strange, because he hears Gerad the most, telling him to keep his mouth shut, to stay loyal to the cause, nothing can hurt him, not even her.  He feels nothing, nothing can hurt him, over and over and over and— _shit_.  Because there’s Gordon, too, and he’s quiet.  He’s terrified.  His heart races beneath her heel and he remembers.  Remembers in stark, vivid colors  _exactly_ what it feels like when one is crushed like a bug.  

Her eyebrows pull together, studying him.  “What will it be, Jonquil?”

When she says that name, he feels a tug in his mind.  Jonquil.  He is Agent Gerad C. Jonquil, and he’d die before he gave up information about SPECTRUM.  About the kids who look like his brothers.  About the AI that pokes holes through this very ship.  He’s Agent Gerad Jonquil, Agent Gerad Jonquil, Agent—

“Hey, get the hell off of him!” cries Scott, and then there’s Gordon, watching as his big brother charges, but John holds an arm out.  Stops him from clawing her face off, not that he could anyways, because this is Penelope, and she’d kill him with a single finger.  The very thought of it brings fear—fear that Gordon hasn’t felt in years.  She could kill each and every one of them.  He needs to run.  He needs to get out of here.  When the question is one of fight or flight, Gordon doesn’t want either.  He just wants to disappear.  

“Answer me, Jonquil,” she barks, and he can’t take it.  Can’t take the way he keeps bouncing back and forth.  Either he’s invincible or he’s fragile.  He’s empty or he’s full.  Gerad or Gordon, Gerad or Gordon.  “ _Jonquil._ ”

“Stop it,” he says.

“On my life, Jonquil, if you don’t—“

“I said  _stop it_.”  And then it’s his turn to pull her down.  He grabs at her leg, throws her onto her back, and in a single blink, he’s got her pinned to the cold tile floor.  His ears feel clouded.  Blood runs to his cheeks.  “ _Don’t_ call me that, do you hear me?  Don’t call me that—never call me that again.”

There’s that look again.  That brand of confident curiosity that only she can pull off.  She’s the only person in the world who can look like she knows everything when, in fact, she might know very little.  “Okay,” she says, a gentle nod.  “Okay.  What should I call you, then?”

It’s a damn good question, and one that he should have an answer to.  It’s not that hard.  Just a name.  She wants a name.  Gerad or Gordon, Gerad or Gordon just fucking  _pick one._ “I don’t—“  He looks over to John.  To Scott.  Is this real, is any of this real?  They’ll kill him if it’s not.  SPECTRUM will send him flying without a parachute faster than he can say forty-thousand feet.

But then he feels fingers on his cheeks.  She turns his head.  Brown eyes meet blue and he wonders whether it even matters, if any of this is real.  “What,” she says, “should I call you?”

He’s not going back to a world where he’s all alone—not going back to a world in which John is dead, and Penelope’s gone, and he’s praying that SPECTRUM reins his kid brother in sooner, rather than later, just so he has someone to be with.  “Gordon,” he says.  “My name is—my name is Gordon.”

“I know,” she says.

“Call me Gordon.”

“Okay.”

“Do it.”

She smiles.  “Gordon,” she says.  He wonders how she does that—how she turns the universe on some sort of axis, aligns his world to hers.  “Virgil will be happy to see you again—of course, technically he already  _has_ seen you again, which is precisely the reason we’re here.”

“What?” he says, and there’s a skip of the heart, a moment when he’s sure he’s been lied to.  This is it.  This is where it all comes crashing down.  She’s sitting up now and he’s losing his grip on her.  Losing his grip on everything.  “You said you were here for SPECTRUM.  Said we—they—whoever—were throwing our weight around—“

“You were.  Throwing your weight around—two boys, no warrant.  That much still stands, and I’ll have your head for it by the way, but if you think I can’t absolutely demolish this organization from ground level, well… anyway.  I am not here because SPECTRUM picked up two boys.  I am here because they picked up two boys in Russia.”

“I’m not following.”

“Virgil and I have been tracking you since Guam,” she says, and it makes his skin itch, like he’s got an infected chip in his arm that’s equipped with GPS.  “Well, not  _you_ , specifically, but someone we thought was you.  Never could confirm it until I was in the channels, reading the chatter about the airport.  I caught wind of this loud, flashy, entirely overt display and I immediately knew it must be you.  Lo and behold, my own information placed you in Russia.  Too much of a coincidence for these two dots on my radar to line up so exactly.”

He shakes his head clear of the voice that lingers.  Nothing.  Hurt.  “You shouldn’t have brought Virgil here.”

“Actually Virgil brought me.”

“Because you’re not a pilot.”

“Because he’s heartbroken.  Because four years ago  _you_  left him behind a Tracy Industries desk and walked away.”

“Well four years ago I could barely walk at all, so let’s try and keep things in perspective here.”

“He saw you in that courtroom, Gordon,” she says.  “And he hasn’t been the same since.”

“Are you saying that I fucked up my brother’s life?” Gordon asks, and he’s laughing.  He shouldn’t be.  He is.  “Because, I mean, add it to the list, sweetheart.”

“Virgil is—“

“Virgil is right here,” says a gruff voice, and everyone looks down to the bulk of a man, sprawled out in that narrow corridor.  “And he wants to know what the hell is going on.”

* * *

He can see how he missed John, that first time. John’s not _supposed_ to be almost a decade older than him. He’s _definitely_ not supposed to look like a cyber terrorist, so _obviously_ Scott hadn’t caught it. And even now, almost distressingly, Gordon’s features keep flickering away, morphing him back into Jonquil. Alan had been unambiguously Alan, that bright soul shining through—but he’d still _looked_ like a stranger. So okay, maybe human adaptability in response to bizarre circumstance is an amazing thing, and hell, maybe his brain’s just primed for it by now, but this is _Virgil_.

Virgil, out of all of them, looks _impossibly_ unlike himself. Maybe that’s what makes it so obvious. He’s _huge_ , for one thing, pushing himself up off the floor and rubbing the back of his neck. His dark hair is cropped crew-cut short. Emphatically not a faux hawk with the tips still faintly purple. John _with_ piercings had been bizarre; but Virgil’s supposed to have the traditional art student hardware. Virgil’s supposed to have an eyebrow ring, a wooden plug stretching out the lobe of one ear. A tattoo on the side of his neck. There’s no raggedy denim or flannel in sight—he’s in a goddamned _flight suit._ Sitting himself up on the floor, his arms are sleeveless to the elbows, biceps like pistons. And his brown eyes are cool, calculating, as he takes a neat  inventory of the misfitted collection of people in this narrow corridor, outside this hangar, aboard this _impossible goddamn airship—_ he’s not rattled, like Scott thinks he should be.

Virgil sizes John up, and the redhead remains advisably still and perfectly non-threatening. Probably making a note of John’s hand still against Scott’s chest, and he spares Scott the _barest_ possible glance, and then—

Kyrano’s still standing over him, gun in hand and leveled at Virgil’s chest, but before Scott can fully process this, Virgil reaches up and puts a hand over the muzzle of the gun in his face. Ice cold. With a nod from John, Kyrano obligingly holsters the weapon. Scott’s pretty sure his jaw dislocates as it drops, but it goes unnoticed, because apparently there’s  only one person here who Virgil cares about.

“Gordon,” he says, soft and careful, as he shifts himself onto his knees and reaches out, a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Gordon’s sat on the floor with the blonde lady still crouching in front of him, and Scott’s pretty sure he can see him starting to come apart. Twitches and tremors and the way his eyes dart around; the way he shudders bodily at the contact. His breath hitches, but Virgil’s grip tightens and he inches ever closer, repeats, “Gordon?”

One of Gordon’s hands darts up and he practically rips Virgil’s fingers away from his shoulder and then scrambles upright, staggers a few yards away and backs himself against the wall. He presses his hands against his face. “Stop,” he says, and then starts to spiral into the search for another repeating litany, some new mantra to keep himself sane. Words rattle out of him like bird shot, frantic, staccato— “Can’t. Can’t, I’m not. Him. Can’t be _him_. Both of me. I can’t, can’t right now, stop stop _stop_ , can’t— _can’t._ I h-have to… _we_ have to…I gotta— _can’t._ I-I…I can’t, I’m _not_ …”

The blonde lady intercedes before Virgil can move again, already halfway to his knees. “Don’t,” she cautions gently, and puts herself firmly between Gordon and his older brother, her hands on Virgil’s shoulders, talking low and fast. “He’ll be all right, he just needs to hold it all together a little longer. I’ll handle him, Virgil, but don’t—I didn’t expect this. I was ready to manage _Jonquil,_ and I’ll need _that_ version of him back if we’re going to get out of here. Don’t get too near to him, he won’t be able to keep it from coming apart if you’re too close. Give him a minute, he’ll pull himself together. It’s complicated. It’s…it’s all programming, and we’ll take it all apart in time, but—”

Virgil just nods, and then heaves the bulk of himself to his feet. The woman’s apparent delicacy makes him look so much the bigger. “Okay. Then we gotta go.”

“Yes,” she affirms with a quick, short nod. Then she turns on her heel and her eyes narrow at John.

EOS floods his field of vision with text before Scott can say anything.

` Follow John’s lead. You are Simon Jared Spellman, a junior marshal with the GDFTA, lately under the mentorship of one Jacob Gareth Teegarden. You are subordinate in every _possible_ way, and will do exactly as you’re told. Don’t answer me.`

One of John’s hands extends across the corridor, towards the blonde woman, looking for a handshake. She’s savvy enough not to take it and after a few moments John pulls it back and clears his throat. “Lady Penelope, you won’t know me, but I’m aware of your reputation. Marshal Jacob Teegarden, I’m with the GDF Transit Authority. You were involved in an operation with my department a year back.” John’s impossibly smooth as he picks the interaction up, but then, Scott’s realizing that he and EOS are old hands at this. The quick change. An identity crafted from the ground up, EOS populating his HUD with details just the same as she’s filling Scott in. He must, he realizes, look absolutely poleaxed. He shrinks back, tries to keep himself in John’s shadow and out from under Virgil’s gaze. John’s adopted a posture of affable sheepishness. “We’re, uh. We’re in over our paygrade.”

“It was _you_ in Russia?”

“Me, my boss, and my partner,” John goes on, clarifying, easy and natural in the lie as he gestures to Scott and Kyrano. “Uh, Junior partner. He’s in training. We stumbled onto a—well, honestly, we’re not sure what, exactly. We were running a sting for a Luddite terrorist, expected to make a minor attempt on the airport’s systems. But then the _whole power grid_ went out, we ran into SPECTRUM in the middle of it, and wires got crossed. And, well, ma’am, really we’re not sure exactly what’s going on.” John points to Virgil and Scott’s _said it,_ so he knows John has to _see_ it—but he says, “Is that, uh, is he not a GDF Sergeant?” he inquires.

“Private contractor,” Penelope answers, still appraising. “I don’t suppose you have your credentials—?”

John bares his wrist with the comm Scott had provided him. The Lady’s fingers dip into a pocket of her flightsuit and she retrieves and passes a small, circular device over John’s wrist. Whatever flashes up on the tiny transparent screen has her arch an eyebrow as her eyes skim the contents. Apparently it checks out, because she goes on to sigh and snap the device closed, exasperated. “My _god,_ Marshal, you’ve absolutely the worst luck of anyone I think I’ve ever met.”

“We haven’t met,” John clarifies. “But I was there, when the Luddites hit London—”

“I stand by the former part of the statement. Frightful mess,”  Penelope agrees, and Scott’s almost staggered by how well this seems to be working. John’s— _Jacob._ If Scott hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn John actually knows her. He wonders what happened in London, in the same moment that EOS helpfully provides him with a brief of a vicious attack, a siege on the city’s power grid that had left the metropolis crippled. He shudders a bit. In some ways, this is an uglier world than his own.

“Would’ve been much, _much_ worse if it hadn’t been for your intervention, ma’am,” John tells her, with open admiration. “Anyway, we’re at your service. By which I mean to say, I really, _really_  hope we can get a lift.”

Penelope’s eyes are still cool, evaluating. She glances over her shoulder, down the shadowy stretch of corridor where Gordon’s finally stopped muttering to himself. “Agent?” she calls, and gets a short nod and a brief thumbs-up, “I’m going to need your assistance to manage quite _this_ many people in custody.”

There’s a shuddering draw of breath from down the hallway and every head turns in Gordon’s direction. It’s Jonquil’s voice that answers, “You got it, angelface.”

***

What the fuck is going on?

Who the  _fuck_  are these people?

Virgil puts one foot under him, then the other, heaves himself to his feet. His head’s still ringing from the blow that floored him. He glares at the dark little man half his size who knocked him down, who waved a gun in his face, who as he rises, shifts his stance ever so slightly to be in a more advantageous position to hit him again. “ _We’re taking them with us_?”

“Yes,” Penelope nods, but barely spares him a glance. Her attention is already divided up between Gordon and the three prisoners. “Yes, I think so.”

“In that case, Angel Delight, put your grizzly bear back on his leash and slip his muzzle back on, yeah?” Gordon winks at her.

Virgil’s skin crawls. Gordon doesn’t speak to him, doesn’t look at him, doesn’t say his name. His posture is casual, bordering on insouciant. His hands are in his pockets. There’s a wet, glistening property to his smile. His eyes shine too bright. When Virgil looks at him, he can’t see much of little brother at all, just Agent Jonquil, slick customer, who had swaggered into central ops and seized control of the GDF’s operation. The man who had looked straight at ‘Sergeant Victor Tillerton’ and hadn’t deign to notice who he was.

_You’re alive, you bastard, you fucker. All this time you’ve been alive. There’s a stone with your name on it beneath a shady tree, next to Mom and Dad and Johnny and Grandma now too and all this time you’ve been alive and you’ve been with_  them _. How could you? Fucker. They said I was crazy. Poor fucking sad fucking Virgil, chasing a pipe dream, chasing a ghost, they said. And here you are. Fucker, you fucker, you’re alive. Oh, Gordon. You’re really alive._

“We should hurry, your Ladyship. I’ve managed to delay some of the emergency responses but our escape is time-critical.” The Marshall – Teegarden, has assumed an air of courteous professionalism, of ‘didn’t you bring the coleslaw at the company picnic?’ bonhomie. It’s the sort of demeanour that’s supposed to be reassuring, but the complete 180 it represents from the skittish, sickly prisoner of less than six hours ago makes it seem sinister. Back then, when he’d pulled Gordon off the redhead and packed him into that lead-lined strait jacket – and stowed that tracker on him – Virgil had felt sorry for him. Now he sort of wants to smash him in his smug teeth.

From the marshal’s shadow, the kid is staring at him, trying to make it seem like he’s not. His eyes are an unsettling bottle green, and Virgil wouldn’t know what that meant if he hadn’t been there when Dr Persad had peeled the contact lenses out of Teegarden’s eyes, if he hadn’t been the one to catalogue them himself and been allowed an up close look at the filigree picocircuitry lacing through them.

_GDFTA my foot. Their tech is too good, bespoke and way too pricey._

And the kid had called his name.

He’s sure of it now, though his date with the floor had come only seconds after. Just before he had been knocked out the kid had called him Virgil.

_No one calls me Virgil._

_What the fuck is going on?_

“Just one moment then,” says Penelope and takes him delicately aside.

The cuffs are just for show, he can pop them open in an instant. She fastens them around his wrists anyway. Her fingers brush the insides of his wrist. “Are you alright?”

“I don’t like this, Pen.”

Pen. He’s still not used to calling her that, not used to just the name without any sort of prefix. She had asked him to call her by her given name, one evening not all that long ago, on another fruitless stake out in a draughty garret in Lisbon. Demanded it actually if truth be told. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she had flung her fork down into the carton of pad Thai, when he had stumbled over another  _milady_ , “I do wish you’d call me Penelope like a normal person. Honestly, you’re worse than Parker.”

She had softened after, when he lay in the camp bed and she sat at the window with her binoculars, taking first watch. “I have colleagues, associates, informants, sources and lovers, Victor,” – she always called him Victor, because that was the name he had given her, though they both knew it for a lie, “But I don’t make friends easily and I value the few that I have. So enough of this milady nonsense, you call me Penny.”

Until then he hadn’t known what he was to her. Her friend. She’s saved his life half a hundred times by now, the least of which was the night they met when he went looking for the Man of Many Faces in Algiers, and found only three thugs with switchblades.

She had believed him when no one else had. She had listened to his story, that first night, as he bandaged up the shallow cut on her arm and asked only occasional, intelligent questions. In the end she had said that she knew of an agent of SPECTRUM who perhaps fit the description of the person he described and that together they would find the Cloudbase and get back what he had lost.

It had been Penelope who had struck upon the idea of imbedding him in the GDF Cyberterror rapid response unit. SPECTRUM, she had learned, were very interested in cyberterror of late, in pursuit of a hacker named SELENE. They were sure to send one of their agents to investigate when next she struck.

He trusts her. If he trusts anyone, he trusts her, so when he says to her. “I don’t like this one bit,” and when she says, “I know, but go along with it for now,” he nods and lets her slide the hood back over his head.

The weave of the hood is mesh enough that he can see out as he’s frog-marched back towards the hangar, with the rest of their little party. The guards check their credentials at the first checkpoint. Jonquil is smarmy charm personified and Penelope the picture of aggrieved, long suffering duty. The guards let them through unchallenged.

“Hey,” he hears someone whisper, as he’s pushed down the stairs. “Are you okay?”

It takes a moment for him to realise he’s the one being addressed. It’s the kid.

“Am  _I_ okay?”

“Yeah? How’s your head?”

“Spellman,” Teegarden barks. “Now is not the time.”

“I know, but –”

“Quiet, all of you,” barks the dangerous little man Teegarden had referred to as ‘Marshall Krishna’. 

The second checkpoint is stickier than the first and the captives are forced to wait at the gate, surrounded by armed guards as Jonquil steps into the office alone. In the end he emerges, smirking and they are let on through.

Their stolen transport plane is still sitting on the launch tube platform, being refuelled.

A flight mechanic gives Penelope a cursory nod. “You taking her out again so soon, Captain. Preflights aren’t quite done. I’ve picked up some irregularities in the transponder beacon.”

Because there isn’t one. Virgil had removed it so SPECTRUM couldn’t track them. “Just gonna run a few diagnostics.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have time for that,” says Penelope. “We’ve been ordered to take these men for interrogation at the White Tower at once.”

The mechanic nods, absently. “Yes, Sir. Let me just get you the pre-checks.” He turns and takes three steps back towards his control module, then breaks into a run. “Shit.”

“I’ll get him,” says Virgil, ripping the hood off and breaking into a sprint. “Get aboard.” He runs after the mechanic.

The mechanic gets to the wall first and slams the big red button, seems shocked when nothing happens. “Hey!” He jabs the button again. “Hey!”

Virgil catches him by the collar and slams his head into a wall, but not before the barricade guards see. One gets on the comm, the other two run towards him, drawing their guns.

He pounds across the tarmac and into the cockpit. Outside, the panic is catching alight like a fuse. More guards are converging on them, Angels are running for their ships.

He finds Spellman in the pilot’s seat going through a round of rapidfire pre-flight checks. The other four are strapped in behind. “What the hell are you doing?” he snaps.

“Getting us the hell out of here,” Spellman doesn’t look at him, doesn’t have an ounce of attention to spare him as he races through the take-off procedure.

“Like hell you are. This is my bird.”

“You’re not fit to be pilot-in-command,” Spellman says without looking up from his work.  

“Excuse me? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Lieutenant, First Class, GDFAF. The 104th.” That’s Dad’s old unit. “I’ve flown a hundred combat missions not to mention a couple of thousand hours of civilian flight. You, on the other hand, have just regained consciousness from a concussive brain injury, you’ve suffered through a reunion with your  _dead_ brother and you’ve just run a man’s head into a wall. So sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up and act as my fucking co-pilot.” The young man shakes his head. “Honestly.”

Virgil sits the fuck down.

“EOS, I’m going to need those doors right now,” calls Spellman.

“I have them,” a little girl’s voice says through the speakers. Alarms sound as the elevator cranks to life. Virgil scrambles for the co-pilot’s headset.

“John, I’m going to need you on nav back there,” calls Spellman.

“That’s not my name, Spellman.”

“Right, sorry. Hang on everybody, this will be a bumpy ride.”

The aircraft drops into the sky in freefall.


	6. The Seclusion of Mountain Valleys

_Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak._

_― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown_

* * *

 

Scott had put the plane down in a field about the size of a postage stamp. It had been a hell of a flight, and a hell of a landing. It had been the best thing that had happened to him since the  _last_ time he’d been in the cockpit of an aircraft, because goddamn it, if everything else in the world(s?!) is a nonsensical mess, the laws of flight and physics are still absolute.

And it had been  _glorious_. The only way Scott knows to explain flying is  _by_  flying, and with his hands on the controls of a beautiful, exquisite machine, he’d been ready to teach a masterclass. Everything else had melted away,  and he’d had Virgil at his side and John in his ear and—well, and Gordon, behind him, having a  _motherfucker_  of a panic attack as Scott had thrown them through the air with carefully controlled abandon.

Two out of three hadn’t been bad. He doesn’t know where they are. He’s pretty sure they’re somewhere in Norway, but John had been the one to pass on their coordinates and heading, at the same time as he’d clambered into the seat directly behind Scott’s, pulled up the aircraft’s main computer and started to trawl through its systems, muttering his own series of orders and inquiries to EOS as he went to work.

“ _John, I need you on nav”_  had been translated to “ _John I need you and EOS on nav and comms and systems and weapons and oh, if you could spare a minute to hack into the avionics of everyone trying to get after us, that’d be just_ fantastic _.”_

The surprising thing had been that he’d hadn’t needed to specify; John had just done it, no questions, no complaints, just status updates and an ongoing and updated report of the situation as it was—from the aerobatic nonsense that had gotten them clear of a sky full of dubiously righteous Angels, down into monitored Russian airspace, foiling ground-based tracking, and then setting a quick, inoffensive course to coordinates specified by the iron-willed Lady Penelope. John had done whatever was necessary, and moved them through the world with such ease that Scott had needed to take a minute to be deeply, profoundly thankful that John and EOS are on his side.

And speaking of people and sides—

For the first time in his  _life_ , he and Virgil had been speaking the same language. Scott hadn’t been able to spare much attention for just what it meant to have this version of Virgil sitting next to him, but more than anything else, more than the way he’d looked or acted or behaved so far—having Virgil for a copilot had been a  _trip_. Virgil had sat the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and been a fucking  _co-pilot_. If Scott had been the melody, there’d been a counterpoint underlying his every thought and action. They’d flown together like partners, like two halves of a whole. Identities stripped away, brotherhood dubious, but partnership  _absolute_.

And at the end of their bumpy, postage stamp landing, Scott had pulled his headset off and swiveled his head to beam at his co-pilot—but Virgil had already been unstrapping his seatbelt, discarding his own headset and halfway out of the cockpit before Scott could say anything. No high-five or slap on the back or “ _Jesus goddamn, you’re one hell of a pilot, kid!_ ” He’d been left to sit in his seat, shaking as the adrenaline started to wear off and his hands had started to tremor and his breath had needed to be regulated into a long, steady rotation of inhale/exhale, deliberate, with nary a word from this dark-haired stranger.

Scott’s not sure why he’s so disappointed. It’s only Virgil.

“ _Well_.” Approvingly, though he chuckles softly before he continues. “Sober. All instrumentation available and supplemented, backed up by a copilot and a systems engineer. No hurricane to speak of. Saved  _six_  lives. Not really a fair comparison, as far as the best I’ve ever seen, but a similar frame of reference, I suppose. Still. Nicely done, Scott.”

He’d almost forgotten about John, still sitting behind him, until he’d heard the wry comment over his shoulder, John’s voice in his ear once again, untainted by radio static or the faintly robotic digital conversion of the comm in his ear. Scott’s answering grin is faint, even as he remembers the conversation to which John’s referring. It’s a trick with John that you can trip him up with technicalities. “Seven. Seven, if you count EOS.”

“Of course we count EOS,” issues primly from the cockpit’s radio.

“Seven, then.”

As Scott hauls himself out of his chair and stretches, shudders the tension out of twitching, sore muscles, he gives John the grin he’d wanted to give Virgil. “I’m the best pilot you’ve ever seen?” he asks, and maybe it’s the giddy aftershocks of adrenaline that have him giving in to this interpretation of the world, “Your version of me?”

John doesn’t answer immediately, and Scott realizes that he’s slumped heavily in his seat; that he looks a bit boneless, more than a little drained. His voice hadn’t betrayed him, but looking at him now—”…hey, you okay?”

“I’m fine,” John responds, though his fingertips have drifted to the point of his pulse in his neck and his eyes are closed. “Need a minute,” he adds, and  _there’s_  what Scott should’ve been listening for, what might’ve been disguised by the static on the comm, by Scott’s own level of intensity, focus—that slight breathlessness, that minor tremor of effort.

Scott chews his lower lip and asks the question again, addressing the open air, “EOS, is he okay?”

There’s a beat and then, her voice is polite and careful as she says, “Some minor arrhythmia. I can attempt to pace it, but it doesn’t always work. We’ve had…malfunctions, lately. I’m reasonably certain it will sort itself out, but I’ll also have a medical chopper en route in under a minute if things take a turn.”

Scott’s about to remind him to pinch his nose and exhale, but John preempts him, short and curt, the tone of an order he expects to be followed, “Get Ben.”

He doesn’t need telling twice and darts through the cockpit door, casts about for the fourth member of his original party—Ben’s standing in the aisle between the seats, with one hand on the headrest of Gordon’s. Penelope’s in the seat facing his, has her hand’s on Gordon’s shoulders, keeps him from lifting his head from between his knees while she speaks softly, patiently. Scott feels a vicious twist of guilt for what he’s just put Gordon through, but muscles past it as he clears his throat. 

Virgil’s nowhere in sight, but Ben’s already glanced up, and it must tell on Scott’s features what the problem is, because the small man starts down the aisle and Scott clears out of the cockpit doorway, lets him past.

* * *

 Scott brings Kyrano in seconds. He hurries to John’s side and rolls up his sleeve, feels for his pulse. “Vitals please.”

EOS overwrites the avionics display. Charts and values flash up on screen. His EKG rhythm strip thunders past. The spots dancing in front of his vision make it hard to read all the red and yellow. His vision greys out…

Rain sleets against the windows of the car. Wipers scrape the windscreen. The leather seat beneath him is heated. He rolls a plastic pen lid between thumb and forefinger.

“…can’t get my head around why he’d do this, then there’s no way I can figure out _what_ he’ll do, or how far he’ll go…or where, or if we’re ever going to see him again.”

“Let’s not proceed to that extreme, just yet.”

Ahead, he can see blurred red neon circles as traffic builds up on the autobahn.

“John? _John_?”

_EOS?_

Suddenly he’s back in the aircraft cockpit, in a felt green field somewhere in Norway, with people calling his name. “What? What is it?”

Kyrano is down on one knee, two fingers jammed beneath his chin to find his pulse point. Scott hovers behind him. John can’t explain it but he’s suddenly irrationally annoyed at both of them.

This feeling subsides after a couple of blinks. “What happened?”

“We lost you there for a sec,” says Scott.

“I _disappeared_?”

“You passed out,” says Kyrano. “Another SVT. Seems to have reverted to normal now.”

“Sinus. Rate 94,” chimes in EOS. “This run lasted 72 seconds.”  

John rubs his face, feels a fraction better. The dark blotches have faded from his vision. “That point you were talking about,” he tells Kyrano, “I think I’ve passed it now. Yeah, definitely.”

“Yes,” Kyrano takes his hand from the pulsepoint at his throat. “But you’ve done well.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Scott peers at him and John can see him resisting the urge to check his pulse for himself. “Is he really… dying?”

“No!”

“A little while ago he did something supremely stupid,” says Kyrano.

“Hey!” Scott’s ready to leap to his defence, but John waves his indignation away. It’s an accurate assessment, the same EOS made the day they had been reunited, but it’s a blunder he would make again given the choice.

A crackle of electric pain courses across his chest and down his left arm. Okay, maybe he might be a little more careful if he had his time again.

“Are you going to be alright?” Scott puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Yes,” says John, even as EOS and Kyrano say, “No.”

“He needs to see a doctor,” Kyrano clarifies. “That’s the reason we were travelling to Berlin. But for now what he mainly needs is rest and food. Let’s get up to the house, regroup. I’ll check on her ladyship, make sure she doesn’t need any assistance. Scott.”

“On it.” Scott gets John’s arm around his shoulders, levers him out of the chair.

“I’m _fine_!”

“Sure you are, buddy,” he begins to whistle as he helps John down from the cockpit, then stops. “Hang on, that’s ‘Stand by Me’ not ‘Lean on Me’.” Scott has never met a tune he can’t mangle.

“Shouldn’t that be ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Brother’?”

“Oh yeah. How does that one go again?”

John’s grateful for his help on the incline, because it’s a half mile walk from the landing strip to the safe house, up a steep, earth-packed path through coniferous woodland. The steps up the hill are edged in railway sleepers and the woods cling close to the path, dense and green.

At the top of the hill is a chocolate box chalet, red timber with white frosting. You have to look closely to notice the bulletproof glass in the windows and the reinforced doors, the way the safe house commands a view of the entire valley. His HUD fills in, in lines of glowing light, the security measures not immediately visible.

The garage door is ajar and when they reach the house Virgil glances out. “I unlocked the front door for you,” he says and before John has a chance to say thanks, disappears back inside the garage.

Scott looks at John, as if he can help decipher Virgil’s mood, but he’s not sure he’s got much of a better read on it than Scott. This man flies like Virgil, in the right light he looks like Virgil, but he feels all wrong, like the facets of his personality that make him Virgil have been turned off at the valve. And John’s never seen his younger brother display anything like the violence they witnessed in the hangar. “Let’s go inside.”

The inside of the chalet is decked out in the style John has come to expect from Lady Penelope: tasteful, restrained and ever so slightly too girly. There’s always about 90 per cent more chintz than John would choose in his own décor.

Still, it feels great to take a load off, to sink onto the couch and pull a cashmere blanket across his shoulders. Scott takes a lap of the room, picking up the odd knickknack, tangling his fingers in a set of wind chimes.

Kyrano joins them before long. He takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table, right next to John, and beckons Scott over with a crook of a finger. Scott perches on the arm of the couch.

“Ask EOS how many bugs there are in this room.”

‘Seven’ flashes up across the borrowed HUD. This doesn’t exactly surprise John. Lady Penelope would be offended if he didn’t think her sitting room was bugged.

“Seven.”

“Can she mute them?”

“Yes.” A warning light appears in the left hand corner of the visual field to indicate this has been achieved.

“Good.” He beckons them closer anyway. “I think we’re safe here, for the moment. Use this time to recuperate.”

“What about you?” asks John.

“I’m going to go to Berlin to see about a doctor for you.”

“You can’t be serious, Kyrano,” says Scott and then flinches when Kyrano turns a cool eye on him. “I mean, you are Kyrano, aren’t you?”

“Call me Ben.”

“Yessir. Sorrysir. Ben. But, I mean, we don’t know if this world, or time, or reality, or whatever, even has a Berlin, let alone one doctor guy. For all you know he decided to be a dentist, or a cinematographer, or he was hit by a bus.”

“He’s right, Ben.”

Kyrano scratches his chin. “It is possible, I suppose. Call it a hunch, but I think this particular individual will continue doing… what it is that he does, regardless of the reality he finds himself. If he’s alive, I’ll find him.”

“But…”

“You need a doctor, John. That’s not open for negotiation. I’ll have Lady Penelope’s friend fly me to Oslo and charter a flight from there.”

It takes a moment for both of them to realise that he’s talking about Virgil. “He’s our brother too, you know,” says Scott, a little defensively.

“No,” says Kyrano. “He’s not. Not yet.” The way he says it sends that same chill down John’s spine. Kyrano leans forward. “Listen to me, both of you. I hope that we can use this place as a rest house, but if things start to feel off, if you feel unsafe, or if Gordon starts acting _erratic_ , I want you to get away from here as fast as you can. Run and keep on running. Understand?”

He and Scott exchange an uneasy glance and he can see his own thoughts mirrored in Scott’s face. “But –”

“The two of you are my priority. For now you need to be each other’s priority, at least until we know more about the people we’re dealing with and the situation we’ve landed in. Keep each other safe.”

“But–” This time it’s Scott who tries. “But I’m not even your Scott.”

“You are now.”

He rises, “I’ll be back tomorrow,” and before either of them can get a word in edgeways he’s gone.  

“Does it ever worry you?” asks EOS, hijacking the stereo-system, “That Mr Kyrano knows a lot more than he’s letting on about everything?”

“Yes.” They say in unison.

John slides back into the couch. There’s so much to puzzle out, so much he needs to think about. But the couch is soft and his eyes are drifting closed and it’s becoming hard to focus on anything. He yawns.

Scott notices. He grabs his arm and hauls. “Okay, spaceman, bed time for you.”

“’mfine.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” He prods him towards the stairs. “Bed. Now. Big brother’s orders.”

John yawns again. “’not bigger than me, ‘nymore.”

“Wrong. You got old, is all. I’m still bigger.” He demonstrates by pushing him up the stairs.

The bed is soft as a cloud, Egyptian cotton sheets, goose-down duvet. He sinks into it and closes his eyes. It’s bliss.

But Scott won’t let up. “Come on, J. We are not Alan, grown-ups don’t sleep in their jeans.” He pulls one of John’s loafers off, then another. The borrowed glasses are plucked off his nose and put on the bedside.

This is bullying, old school. The same sort that used to happen when he would arrive home from rotation, heavy-limbed and gravity-sick and be forced into eating blueberry pancakes and pulling off his blues before he could go unconscious for 18 hours.

He feels a pang of sudden homesickness at that memory. “’s’not fair.”

“Cautionary tale. If you try to pick up guys in airport bars, sooner or later they’ll wanna get you into bed. Shirt too.”

“Uggh-uh.” John tugs the shirt over his head as Scott pulls the curtains across, blocking out the sunshine.  

“Thank you.” Scott accepts the shirt. “Oh. Oh-ho-ho. Who’s IR? Now I know you’re not my Johnny if you’re getting girl’s names tattooed across your chest.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Should I?”

He groans. “Long story. Ask me some other time.”

“Okay. I’m just here, right? Got the baby monitor in my ear in case the shit hits the fan. Call me if you need me.”

“’kay. Night Scooter.”

“Night John.”

He sleeps.

* * *

He’s been here before, in this world where down feels like up and his guts leap to his throat.  He’s been in this world of dizzying, desperate desire for someone to just  _grab_ the controls and  _fly_.  There’s no alarms this time, no frantic dash, no one telling him that he has it handled, that he needs to be more confident, that they’re all going to be okay, but it’s the same. They’re falling straight from the sky—falling, falling, he can’t fall.  Not again. He’s been here before and he doesn’t know, doesn’t know, doesn’t know what he’ll do if he has to go through this crash again.

Except, no.  No,  _Gordon_ has been here before.

 _Gordon_ crashed,  _Gordon_ killed,  _Gordon_ felt his body shatter.  He is not Gordon, not Gordon, not Gordon.  He is Agent Gerad Jonquil.  He feels nothing.  Nothing can hurt him.  He cannot be Gordon—will not be Gordon.  He is Agent Gerad Jonquil, and Gordon is weak, and Gordon must be killed.  

There is a single blink that separates the two of them.  That’s all it takes.  A single blink kills Gordon and bring Gerad back into power, except, not really, because they aren’t falling anymore.  In fact, they aren’t even flying.  The roar of the engines is replaced by the curl of the wind and he’s stationary.  He looks out of the front of the craft, sees green forests instead of blue skies.  Can’t seem to remember when they landed.  Can’t seem to remember anything.  It’s not a single blink, no matter how quickly it seems to have happened.

He needs a smoke.

And he reaches into his pocket for his box, but he finds that in the same amount of time that it had taken him to blink, his jacket has been removed, his tie undone, and he’s sweating through the black of his unbuttoned button-down.  

“Looking for these?”

The Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward has always been, as far as he can tell, strikingly and unfairly gorgeous.  This is by no means her greatest weapon in her war waged against the world, but it is one she wields obscenely well, nonetheless.  Both of them know exactly what game she plays, leaned up against the pilot’s seat, white clad, legs long, holding up a golden box of sweetly soothing nicotine, but Gerad’s greatest weakness at the moment is that awareness of the facts does not reduce their effectiveness.  “I need…” he manages.

“You need to get off my aircraft,” she tells him.

This does the trick, pulls him right out of that confusion that tends to follow these long blinks.  “ _Your_ aircraft?” he says.  “Tsk, tsk.  You really think just because you steal something, it’s yours?”

“Let’s call it finders-keepers,” she says.  “Or if you’d really like, we could use that fancy legal jargon your people so thoroughly enjoy—unrestrained obtention of relevant materials as they pertain to the needs of  _The Cause_.”

“That special authority has saved lives and you know it, you spoiled, dainty little heiress—“

“That special authority is so broad that it has no  _choice_ but to save lives, meanwhile it simultaneously destroys countless others, you arrogant, brainwashed  _prick_.  Calling it a success is comparable to aiming a hundred flaming arrows at a target, missing all but one, and calling out  _bullseye_  as the entire archery range goes up in flames.”

“Of  _course_ you would use archery metaphor.  Tell me, did your rich daddy help you with that one?”

“No,” she says.  “Yours did.”

Because  _that’s_ her greatest weapon.  Not the long legs.  Not the hair.  Not that smile that makes the world stand still.  It’s that wit.  She’s sharp, and more than that, she’s sharp when no one expects her to be.  For all her skill and all her knowledge, Penelope’s greatest weapon is, by far, the naiveté of her onlookers.  “Now then,” she says.  “Off.  We have guests waiting for us.”

“Guests,” says Gordon, and it comes out as  something of a laugh even though he can’t seem to find it funny.  “Where’d you take me this time, Pen?  Italy?  New York?  I always wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower.”

“You  _have_ visited the Eiffel Tower.”

“Somehow I just don’t think it’s the same when there’s a vengeful blonde chasing you through the streets with her pistol in tow.”

“Well.  Call it a debt repaid for the time you left me behind in Sri Lanka with those rampant elephants.”

“Was Sri Lanka really my fault?” he tries.  “Or was it really your fault, for trusting me with wild elephants in the first place?”

“Still your fault,” she says.  “You valued information over the life of your partner.”

“ _Temporary covert assistant_ ,” he corrects.  “And you would have done the same thing.”

She rolls her eyes, tosses the cigarettes into his lap.  He slips a slim from the box, sets it between his lips.  Already he can feel his shakes beginning to cease.  He feels the grit of the matchbook, lights it, watches the match burn down to a stub until his fingertips can’t take it anymore and his reflexes take over.  Match goes flying.  The Lady stomps it out.

“Well,” she says, quiet.  “At least I know who I’m dealing with.  Nice to see you again, Agent Jonquil.”

He holds his hands out to each side, tada, grinning as wide as he can with the cigarette in his lips.  His words get squeezed between the flame.  “The one and only.”

As she studies him, he can’t help but feel as though he’s on the wrong side of the microscope.  He’s sitting on glass, Penelope looking down on him, and if she looks too closely, the whole thing is going to shatter.  “Are you coming?” she says.  “Or should I just wait until the next time you black out and drag you up the mountain myself?”

A shiver.  He’s tired of these shivers weaseling their way into his spine.  “Where are we?” he asks again.

“Undisclosed location,” she says.  “I can’t have SPECTRUM knowing where all of my safe houses are, now can I?”

* * *

Safe houses are usually such lonely places, being secluded and secret and solitary, as they are. Penelope’s safe places dot the globe, and this one is a favourite. On more than one occasion she’s retreated to it for entirely unprofessional reasons, and cocooned herself away from the world. The sky overhead is a perfect, cerulean blue, mirrored in the mountain lake that dominates half the landscape. The forest is dense, emerald green, and beyond the edge of the valley in which the chalet is situated, there are white capped mountains, majestic. In winter, this place is barricaded in white, the entire world bleached into nothingness beneath slate gray skies. Penelope usually comes here to lose herself, for a while, and to pretend that she’s the only person in the entire world.

Still. In some ways, she supposes, it’s nice to have company.

Even if that company includes Agent Gerad Jonquil, whistling cavalierly as he follows her up the path to the house. He’s got his jacket folded, slung over his shoulder. His shirt is inky black, and he’s stuffed his tie in its front pocket. You’d never know it to look at him, that he’d spent the entire two hour flight in a state of completely dissociative panic; part of it sobbing into her shoulder, part of it being restrained from violence by the curiously effective Marshall Krishna, and a great deal of it with his head pinned between his knees, fingers in his ears, and chattering fractured mantras to himself.

She doesn’t glance over the still slightly damp patch her shoulder, though its tempting, because she wonders whether or not _he_ even knows it. Penelope’s already loosened the collar of her stolen white flightsuit, but she’s itching to be the rest of the way out of it. The thing is confining and she hates the way she looks in white, all pale and washed out. Penelope is many things, but an angel isn’t one of them.

“Damn,” Jonquil comments, as the chalet comes into view at the crest of the path, sloping upwards through the a break in the woods that surround it. “Nice digs, Pen.”

“They’ll serve,” she answers primly, though privately she knows they’re both understating the case. Her chalet is _gorgeous_. Late afternoon sunshine glints golden off the windows, and the garage door is open. She’ll need to rid herself of Jonquil before she can speak to Virgil, and Virgil urgently needs to be spoken to. Virgil had gone on ahead, had left the plane with only a moment’s attention spared for Penelope and his brother, and a brief, hard stare at Senior Marshal Krishna.

If any of their three extra guests are _actual_ GDF Marshals, Penelope will chew the sleeves off her damned flightsuit.

“Come along, Jonquil,” she calls over her shoulder, as she jogs up the steps to the front porch and her hand finds the handle of the door. Behind her there’s the sound of another match striking, a rough grit of phosphorus on sandpaper, and she spins on her heel, stomps back down the steps and snatches the cigarette out from between his lips before he can light it, irate. “You are _not_ ,” she declares, tearing the thing neatly in half and tossing the pieces away, scattering flecks of tobacco as she does so, “smoking in my safe house.”

She’s gotten right into his bubble now, arms folded over her chest as he grins down at her. It’s an excuse to look him over again, to note the way his lower left eyelid twitches, the way he isn’t quite drawn up to his full height. This is only about a hundred and seventy-five centimeters, and Penelope’s only ever known Jonquil to stretch up into every last millimeter of it. Stress has him wanting a cigarette. Fatigue has him slouching. “Oh, no?”

No. Because it’s Gerad Jonquil who smokes, and not Gordon Tracy. “No. And take your shoes off.”

“ _Bossy_ ,” he says, and though his steps start to trip lightly up the short flight of stairs, Penelope catches the stumble at the tail end, charitably pretends she doesn’t. She watches with her arms still folded as he kicks his black shoes off, and nudges them with stockinged feet to wait neatly beside the door. “You gonna show me around? Where’s your bedroom?” he asks, and there’s that vague, ever present undercurrent of indecency in his tone, the one she’s proved herself equal to the measure of on more than one occasion.

This, of course, was before she knew he was the brainwashed younger brother of someone she’s come to consider one of her closest friends. “I’ll be along presently,” she answers, brooking none of Jonquil’s usual nonsense. “Go inside. Leave the Marshals alone. Don’t make a _mess_. There’ll be food in the pantry if you’re hungry. Don’t touch my things.”

“I am gonna touch _all_ your things.” He holds his hands up and wiggles his fingers at her, grins that obscene, insincere grin.

Penelope doesn’t bother to dignify this with a response and waves him inside. Her business awaits in the garage.

And, apparently, her business has started to conduct herself without her, because as she rounds the corner into the garage, Virgil is already having an argument with Marshal Krishna.

“—if he needs a doctor so urgently, then I’ll drop the three of you at the nearest highway, and you can hitch your way into town. Three hour drive. There’s a local hospital.”

Krishna has planted his feet, folded his arms and argues calmly, rationally on behalf of his two subordinates, “ _He’s_ half the reason we’ve made it here safely and undetected. The other half being his protege, who’s the reason you weren’t shot out of the sky. They’ve both been roughly handled, they’re both done in. I’m not going to haul him to the side of a remote Norwegian highway and hope for the mercy of some passing motorist.”

Penelope intercedes before Virgil can snap that it’s not _his_ problem, and don’t they have a unit to get back to? “I won’t have it said that I’m not a gracious host, darling,” she says, light and smooth and changing the tone of the conversation as she addresses the Marshal, “We do thank you, very sincerely, for your help, and I apologize for having caught you three in the crossfire of our larger goals. SPECTRUM are hell to deal with at the best of times, and our objective was always going to cause friction.”

“Agent Jonquil, you mean.”

Agent Jonquil, indeed. Penelope shrugs her shoulders, still clad in the white of one of SPECTRUM’s Angels, and in stark contrast to Agent Jonquil’s monochrome black. “Agent Jonquil is a victim in this, perhaps more than anyone else. The details are…complicated. As long as I’ve known him, or at least known _of_ him, I’ve only ever known half his story.” She nods to Virgil. “His brother has the other half.”

Virgil’s gone quiet and his arms are tightly clasped across his chest. His face is a thundercloud and he glares at Penelope with undisguised irritation. “I’d rather not have the personal details of this whole endeavour spilled in front of _strangers,”_ he says, curt. “I’m not flying him to Oslo or anywhere else. You know as well as I do that he’s no goddamn GDF Marshal, and neither are the other two.”

Krishna has ceased to pay Virgil any attention and seems to realize that it’s Penelope he should be dealing with. This is quite correct, and something Penelope wishes more people would realize, far sooner than they usually do. She remains calm and perfectly polite as she says, “Virgil, dearest, for the sake of politesse and with an eye towards protocol, for the present, I think we shall operate in deference to our guests’ wishes to preserve some anonymity. They have, after all, been tremendously helpful. If Marshal—I’m sorry, the redhead? His name escapes me.”

“Teegarden, your ladyship. Jacob will do. He has a heart condition and we were on our way to see a particular specialist.” Krishna pauses. “I should like him to be in far better shape before I ask him to travel again. It would save time and spare his health to bring the doctor to him.”

Virgil had already said so, though he’d also made a note that this wasn’t _all_ the redhead had. Cybernetic implants and something concealed as a pacemaker embedded in his chest. Penelope’s curiosity has been more than piqued. “If Marshal Teegarden needs a few days to recover, then he’s welcome here for as long as that should take.”

Krishna nods his gratitude. “Thank you, my lady.”

“And Virgil will of course accompany to Oslo, and he’ll be prepared to fly you back,” she continues, though it draws a baleful glare. “Can I offer you some tea, something to eat? I imagine you’re in a hurry to depart.”

“Something for the road, perhaps, but if it’s all the same to you, the sooner I leave, the sooner I can be back. Teegarden does need attention quite urgently.”

“I don’t _like this_ , Pen,” Virgil thunders, still irate and defiant, and Penelope rounds on him with uncharacteristic impatience.

“ _I am aware_ ,” she returns, her own brand of rising temper, icy and disparaging, “And since you seem incapable or unwilling to infer my reasoning, then I will inform you directly: your presence poses a _significant_ challenge to your brother. He’s two separate thousand piece puzzles, whose boxes have been dumped together and _shaken_. He needs _sorting out,_ and therefore _I_ need to take him in hand. And I need _you_ ,” she plants a finger in Virgil’s chest and then jerks a thumb in Krishna’s direction, “to remove yourself from the vicinity, and to ask _him_ just what exactly _happened_ on Cloudbase, to break the programming of one of SPECTRUM’s very best agents—someone _eight years entrenched_ in their organization; so thoroughly and completely indoctrinated that he didn’t recognize you, _barely disguised in a GDF uniform._ I have your brother to manage and Krishna’s subordinates as collateral. I shall have my hands _quite full_ , and your cooperation should not need to be _demanded_ , considering all I’ve done to serve your cause. So, Virgil, you will very obligingly fly Marshal Krishna to Oslo, whereupon you will report back with what he tells you, and hopefully the information will be of some use to us, and more importantly, _to your brother_. Have I made my motives clear?”

Virgil doesn’t answer with more than a sullenly affirmative grunt, and storms out of the garage.

Penelope’s cheeks have flushed and she can’t help a stamp of her foot, despite the fact that Marshal Krishna still watches her with something like amusement. Incongruently, for some reason, she’s reminded of Parker as he chuckles. “Perfectly clear, as far as I’m concerned, Lady Penelope,” he says. “I only hope I can oblige.” He bows, then, and she feels her cheeks grow slightly warmer. “I’ll thank you to look after my boys, your ladyship.”

“I’ll apologize in advance for my companion’s behaviour,” she answers, wry. “I’ll brew you some tea, Marshal.”

“And I’ll thank you again, Lady Penelope.”

* * *

EOS makes herself comfortable, stretching out, inspecting the safe house’s interweaving systems for anything inefficient or rotten. The safe house is built in layers, like a Matryoshka doll. At its centre is a panic room, six feet of steel and concrete. Immediately surrounding that are the tunnels, an escape passage leading to the bottom of the hill, and another that comes out at the lake. A small but well-stocked armoury, a compact command centre, each accessed only by voice and fingerprint recognition are also housed in the inner layer. Beyond that there are walls of concrete and steel, sensor nets and motion detectors, an entire cocoon of precautions to keep its occupants safe. She reviews them all and finds them satisfactory.

At the heart of them all her John sleeps.

He has one arm wrapped around his pillow, his legs tucked against his chest. Even as she is occupied with other things, a part of her stays to fuss over him, to examine every heartbeat, comparing it to the standard and to the ones that went before.

For the moment he sleeps in peace.

Sprawled out on the bed beside him, Scott Tracy also sleeps. He lies on the duvet rather than under it and despite his earlier admonishments to John, has gone to sleep with his boots on, his feet dangling over the edge of the bed. One hand is spread-eagled across his chest, the other pointing to the floor. He has the earpiece nestled in his ear in case she needs to wake him.

She studies Scott Tracy’s hair. The hair on his head is almost uniformly #522F36 (chestnut mahogany). However, he now has approximately three days’ worth of beard growth, against which she can run a comparison. Here, she interested to note, only 61% of the hairs of his chin are #522F36 (chestnut mahogany), the other 39% being #b87333 (golden copper). This means that he is likely heterozygous for the recessive variant of Mc1R on chromosome 16, another corroboration of his close genetic relationship to John, who is of course, homozygous for the gene. Scott is only a single copy of a gene away from being a redhead too.

She has had to rewrite the logic parameters of her core systems three times to be able to process the facts of this new Scott Tracy. If she had not been isolated for an extended period by SPECTRUM, she might never have extrapolated his identity independently and might still be trying to correct internal logic errors regarding the existence of an individual simultaneously four years older and five years younger than John. As it is, she has integrated Steven Summers’ profile into Scott’s but remains dissatisfied with categorisation.

`Name: Scott Carpenter Tracy`

`AKA: Thunderbird 1, Scotty, Scooter, Steven Jeremy Summers, Steven Trenton, Neil, Stevo, Deputy-Marshal Simon Jared Spellman, He Who Thinks He Must Be Obeyed, That Asshole`

`Age: 31 (22)`

`Relationship to John: Older brother (Younger brother)`

`Relationship to EOS.exe: Reluctant ally: threat level -2 (Strong ally: Threat level -7.5)`

This system is imperfect and full of paradoxes. However, the alternative of having two separate profiles contains similar syntax and logic errors and is also fundamentally untrue. This irritates her almost as much as the fact that the laws of the universe seem to be in flux.

Sometime soon she needs to sit down and devote herself to both these problems. She will have to do a full systems back up first though to ensure she doesn’t give herself recursive errors when contemplating so many paradoxes.  

She scans the rest of the house and surroundings for its other occupants.

Bhanji Kyrano sits at a filigree iron table on the porch of the house. He doesn’t appear to be doing anything except staring at the tree line and breathing slowly and regularly. As far as she knows, and much to her relief, there still appears to be only one of him.

Halfway down the slope of the hill, motion sensors detect another individual. There is a photographic blind spot on that part of the path, but an infrared sensor shows her a warm body, kicking furiously at the remains of a tree stump. From the height and mass, she identifies Virgil Tracy.

`Name: Virgil Ivan Tracy`

`AKA: Thunderbird 2, Sergeant Victor Tillerton, Virg`

`Age: 26 (28? - estimate)`

`Relationship to John: Younger brother (??? brother)`

`Relationship to EOS.exe: Ally: threat level -3.5 (Neutral – insufficient data to assess threat matrix)`

She has not yet characterised the nature of this Virgil Tracy. He did stop Agent Jonquil (Gordon Tracy) from injuring John in one of their encounters, but other than that has behaved atypically. For now she will continue to keep him under observation and try to understand his patterns of behaviour. Currently he is moving away from the safe house and out of the immediate danger zone.

There are two individuals in the main living area, but one in particular that concerns her.

`Name: Gordon Cooper Tracy`

`AKA: Thunderbird 4, Gordy, Gordo, Agent Gerad Jonquil,  I’m Not Calling You That, Squidboy, You little Shit`

`Age: 24 (25? - estimated)`

`Relationship to John: Younger brother (Younger brother) ((Imminent Threat)) (((Rescue victim))) ((((Torturer)))) [See appendix I]`

`Relationship to EOS.exe: V. Reluctant ally: threat level -1 (Potential ally: threat level 0) ((Extreme threat to continued existence: threat level 10) [See appendix II]`

He is leaning against the back of the couch, one hand in his pocket, the other toying with a carved wooden elephant he has plucked from a shelf. The object of his focus is Lady Penelope Creighton Ward, who is in the kitchen setting out a dainty china tea set on a wooden tray. The kettle is singing on the stove.

“English ladies do love their tea,” he says, turning the elephant over.

“We do,” she says, “I suppose you’ll be wanting coffee?”

He laughs. “After Cairo? I won’t drink anything I haven’t seen you drink first, Your Ladyship.”

“Tea it is then. I hope you like earl grey.” She sets the tea leaves to brew. “If you want to be useful you could help get the tea things down from the shelf.” She points to the sugar bowl high on a shelf just out of her reach.  

He comes to stand behind her, crowds close as he reaches past her and lifts the sugar bowl down and places it on the tray.

“Thank you.”

“You know,” his fingers graze the skin just above her collar, brushing a strand of her hair away so it curls around her neck. “If you want help, I could _help_ you out of that flight suit.” His fingers slide to the hidden zipper at the nape of her neck and the first couple of teeth come undone.

“I don’t think that is a good idea,” says Lady Penelope, but doesn’t make a move to stop him.

“Sure it is,” his finger slides across her T1 Vertebrae and he inhales. “I’ve missed you.”

“No, you haven’t.”

He laughs and his lips press lightly against her throat. “Maybe not, but you’ve missed me.”

Her hair tangles in his hands as his lips slide along her jawline. EOS sees her shiver. Her eyes close.

_Humans are weird._

Penelope shimmies away. “That’s enough of that.”

He smiles, pops a sugar cube in his mouth, “Come on, angeldust, you invite me for a romantic getaway, secluded location, I had to try.” He yawns.

“I’d expect nothing less from Agent Jonquil.” Lady Penelope’s lips purse. She places the china on her tray and then from a press she removes a second sugar bowl and tongs. This she places among the tea things.

Gordon starts. “You didn’t…I mean…” He cuts himself off with another yawn. “You… you…” He yawns again.

She crosses the room to his side. “Just something to help you sleep. Gordon.” She places a hand on his chest and guides him backwards, step by step, to the couch. “Lie down.”

“You’re some… sexy bitch,” he slurs his words as he sits down on the couch. Anger, in fact all recognisable emotion, is draining from his face. His pupils dilate. He yawns again.

“I know,” with a tap from her he folds up, spreads out horizontally on the couch. “Lie down. Good boy.”

“I dun wanna… You can’t…I won’t…” He rallies for a moment, lifts his head, then his eyes close.

She sits on the arm of the couch and waits until his breathing regularises, until the lounge fills with his faint snores, then she covers him with a carmine cashmere throw. She ruffles his curls and then leans down and gives him a motherly kiss on the forehead. “Sleep well,” she says, “And don’t dream.”

Penelope then crosses the room to the computer display. “Aunt Sylvia please,” she tells the computer system.

A woman in her mid-fifties wearing a fitted yellow Gucci dress appears onscreen. “Penelope, darling.”

“Aunt Sylvia, how’s Boston?”

“Lovely this time of year, my dear, and blessedly quiet.”

“Good.”

“ _EOS_?” Upstairs, Scott is calling her name, he’s half asleep.

“I’m here.”

“s’John okay?” he says into his pillow.

“All vitals are stable.”

“S’good.”

“Scott Tracy?”

“Uhhh.”

“Take your shoes off.”

Scott simply groans and rolls over so she blasts ‘ _Mamma Mia’_ by ABBA (1975) over his earpiece.

“Okay, okay,” He levers first one boot off, then the other, and crawls under the duvet.

“EOS?”

“Yes?”

“Be a pal, get the lights.” She obliges him by dimming the lights down to nothing. “Thanks, buddy.” He pushes his head into his pillow. “Night, EOS.”

“Good night, Scott. Sleep well,” says EOS as she sets herself to the many tasks at hand.  

* * *

Dreams are simple. In dreams, he knows exactly who he is. He doesn’t have to worry about names or titles or designations.

  
In dreams, he is himself and just himself and none of that other stuff matters. In dreams, he lies naked on a bed in a tiny apartment in the Seventh Arrondissement with a beautiful woman in his arms. She kisses his scars and there is nothing hidden or complicated or painful between them and he is just allowed to love her.

  
Dreams are for children.

  
And anyway, he doesn’t dream. He said so in his last three psy-ops evaluations, didn’t he?

  
“What do you dream about?”

  
“I don’t dream.”

  
“Everybody dreams.”

  
“Then I don’t remember.”

  
He finds himself back there, sometimes in that stark white room. 

SPECTRUM prefers its colours on the inside. It wants to paint the world in absolutes. White and black; chrome and class; all the better to show up your sins.

  
They had asked him about her in the white room, asked for extraordinarily intimate details. Her likes and dislikes, where she had touched them, how he had felt.

  
And he had told them, he had scratched their every voyeuristic itch with the intimates of his time with her. The where, the when, the how many times. He had told them how her hair smelled of vanilla and strawberry and how she’d shuddered as he pressed his tongue to her navel.

  
Gordon wouldn’t have done that. Gordon would have turned red faced. He would have grunted and stammered and insisted that it was none of their business and that gentlemen didn’t kiss and tell 

It’s yet another reason why he is strong and Gordon is weak. Gordon would have shown them immediately that he cared about her. Gordon would have shown him how much he cared for her. Gordon would have told them that he was waiting to run away with her just the very moment she asked.

  
She had asked.

  
Do they know? Do they know that not all angels fall of their own accord? That some are dragged to hell in a soft, feathered embrace? Do they know that it was Eve who seduced the serpent? Have they looked inside his head? Riffled though his thoughts? Catalogued his dreams?

  
In his dreams, John dies a hundred different ways. He’s stabbed, shot, drowned, smooshed to a pulp. An oiled wire or a silk tie is slipped around his neck and the man in black garrottes him until his face turns purple. Anything so that Gordon doesn’t have to watch the flies collect on Johnny’s eye and mouth as he lies there on that godforsaken spit of land.

  
In dreams, he sits in the white room as his father conducts his evaluation. “Don’t aggravate your brother, Gordon.”

  
“Don’t call me that.”

  
Dad’s three-piece suit is doing nothing for his broken neck. is stylus scritches across his tablet. “Why? It’s your name. The one I gave you.”

“Do I get to choose anything for myself?”

  
“I don’t know, do you?” 

Shrink talk. He hates shrink talk. This is a test. Everything at SPECTRUM is a test.

“Did you fail your test?” John asks amiably. The cigarette is a bright flare between his fingers. The smoke oozes out the wound in his chest. 

“Of course I didn’t fucking fail my test.”

“Good.  That’s good. So, you’re certified, now? Actual secret agent?  Wetworks and everything?” The smoke twists in grey curlicues against the walls of the white room. 

Penelope’s lips press against his collarbone and around the bed his assessors take notes, marking him for passion, for desire, for technique. 

“Did you fail your test?” John looks up from his tablet. 

“Of course I didn’t fucking fail my test.”

“Good.  That’s good. So, you’re certified, now? True love and everything?” The smoke twists in grey curlicues against the walls of the white room. 

“Fuck you, Johnny.”

Alan writes equations on a chalk board while SPECTRUM try out colours on him like they’re helping him choose a suit for his wedding.

Agent Chalk had liked him from the start. “Brilliant. Proud. In search of a purpose. I think he will make an excellent addition. That’s not going to be a problem for you, is it?”

“Why would it be a problem, Ma’am?”

“It might have been a problem for Gordon Tracy.”

“Gordon Tracy’s dead, Ma’am.”

A lump of sugar dissolves on his tongue. A man talks of souls as he dies. Scott taps out a rhythm on the arm of his chair. Dad goes through the window of a plane.

John had wanted to fly together. John had wanted to fly that day too.  
Maybe that’s what’s going on. Maybe John’s the secret agent and he’s the dead man?

That must be it. The relief of solving the riddle, of finally understanding, of realising he’s simply got the whole thing backwards, causes tears to leak from his eyes.  

He feels his chest for the piece of shrapnel and finds only a gaping hole. He gropes around inside but can’t seem to find what he’s looking for.

“Dad,” he says. “My heart’s missing.”

It feels strange, a great big cavity where the vital part of him should be.

“Of course it is,” Dad is dismissive. “This is a dream after all.”

“I don’t dream,” he protests. 

“Yes,” Dad refers to his notes, “Yes, you mentioned in your assessment. Don’t worry, Agent Jonquil, you don’t need your heart. SPECTRUM will install a computer in your chest instead and that will be just as effective.”

The man in black slips the wire around his throat and pulls tight. 

“We’ll begin now,” says Dad.

But before anything can actually happen, the white room fades away, because Gordon Tracy doesn't dream.

* * *

It’s a personal policy of Kyrano’s to cede the opening move in any given contest.

There’s a degree to which this is merely a personal foible, but over the years he’s concocted reasons and rationales, means to justify or explain what began as simple habit. That he prefers the introduction of a certain element of challenge. That the opening move is fundamentally telling of his opponent and the chance to observe it before reacting provides its own advantage. That he just prefers Black over White.

Kyrano’s not certain what Virgil’s personal philosophy is, in this regard. It’s possible it’s pure, sullen stubbornness that results in his utter, stony silence for the duration of the entire flight from the safehouse, right up until they land at the airport in Oslo.

Still, it’s not to say he’s gained _nothing_ in the duration of the flight. He’s learned that Virgil’s a more than competent pilot, but this much seems unsurprising. Given the chance to examine him from the copilot’s seat, Kyrano observes that this version of Virgil has scarred, busted up knuckles and a faded scar along the line of his jaw. His expression is flinty, and if he notices the way he’s being pondered and poured over, he doesn’t deign to care, and proceeds stolidly through the flight without anything much more interesting than the occasional blink. It’s almost as though he’s not actually there, almost as though he’s made himself an extension of the machine he pilots, and a pure agent of the assignment he’s been given.

The choice _not_ to make a move is perhaps as telling as whatever move might be made. Perhaps in that regard, Kyrano’s got more in common with this iteration of Virgil than what he remembers of the version he belongs to.

But, more distressingly, he’s reminded more of Agent Gerad Jonquil than he is of anyone else. There’s a certain hardness, a certain absence. A quickness to violence, and a serrated edge of suspicion in every interaction with strangers. There’s a lack of what the pair of them always brought out in one another, in the world where Kyrano knew them both well.

As far as the needs of those in Kyrano’s care can be considered to have a hierarchy, John’s have to come first. Kyrano’s uncertain of the details, but it’s clearly a question that regards the state of John’s failing health, and medical intercession is becoming an urgent necessity. The facts as they stand seem to indicate that he’s broken from his family, carved a secret place within his heart, and holds a whole other entity inside it. What EOS is and whether she can be trusted entirely aside, it remains a fact that her presence is slowly killing John. This will need to be remedied.

Scott follows, and it’s by merit of his improbable youth and the similarly improbable fact of his apparent displacement. The esoterica of just what’s _caused_ their situation is unimportant, within Kyrano’s worldview, reality is whatever can be touched and felt and grappled with. This version of Scott can be caught by the collar and dragged along, and regardless of the fact that he’s emphatically _not_ the thirty-one-year-old, prematurely graying leader of International Rescue, Kyrano still has a fairly good grasp of him. He intends to keep Scott firmly in hand; if by no other merit than his easily useful, almost puppyish loyalty to John.

Gordon breaks Kyrano’s heart, and for this reason is the most dangerous of the four of them. Given freedom from his obligations, real and percieved, Kyrano would drop everything and devote to Gordon the care and kindness and attention he’ll need, if there’s any hope that he might one day be unbroken. He’s thankful, and hopeful, to have noticed a sharp understanding about the Lady Penelope. She’s equal parts steel and softness, and aboard a plane in freefall, dipping and darting through hostile skies, Penelope had still bowed her face next to Gordon’s, held his hands and spoken softly, and been there for him. If this version of Virgil is one that might fail his brother, then at least he seems to know that Penelope will pick up his slack.

The idea of Virgil _having_ any slack to pick up is perhaps what’s most foreign in all of this. Virgil is meant to be solid, immutable, meant to be the rock upon which his brothers anchor themselves. And more than any of his brothers—more even than Gordon— _this_ Virgil radiates anger. Even with his features kept deliberately neutral, even as he continues to say nothing at all—Kyrano’s fairly certain that the man is _furious_. Something about him _seethes_ , some deep, dark hurt has been patched up and painted over, packed in layer upon layer of the ways he’s been wronged.

It all makes for excellent contemplation, in the hours worth of stony silence it takes to arrive in Oslo. The lights of the airport are bright jewels in the slowly falling dark.

And Virgil breaks his silence once the plane taxis to a halt on the runway. “Get off my plane,” he orders, curt.

As opening moves go, this is clearly meant to double as a closing move. Kyrano rises from his seat obligingly, but doesn’t exit the cockpit. He’s had his countermove prepared ever since it became apparent just what game they were playing. “Was there something you were meant to ask me?” he prompts.

Virgil’s hands don’t leave the controls and he continues to stare through the cockpit window, unmoving. “We don’t need anything from you,” he answers, and it’s plain in his tone that he means this to be the end of the conversation.

There’s a theory, in chess, that the opening move has the advantage. Despite his proclivity for the second play of any game, Kyrano’s also of the opinion that any natural advantage one happens across is one that should be taken, and that when information is freely offered, it’s better to know more than less. Sometimes it helps to point out reciprocity. “You’ve rendered a great deal of assistance to me and mine, reluctantly or not. I don’t blame you for mistrusting our identities, but I’d hope our motives are less suspect. As far as your brother is concerned, I promise you, I only want to help.”

Virgil’s knuckles whiten. Kyrano takes a prudent step backward. “Fuck you.”

Kyrano chuckles. “Well, you and he have a common language, at least.”

It’s like poking a bear with a stick. He growls, warning. “Don’t talk to me about my brother. You don’t know a goddamn thing about what I’ve gone through, for _my brother_. I wanted my brother back and I got _that_ slimy motherfucker.” Virgil pauses, seems to realize he’s said more than he wanted to. “Get the fuck off of my plane, or I’ll _throw you off_ , old man.” He shifts in his seat, his hands balling into fists as they leave the controls. “Seems to me I owe you a blow about the head.”

“I should hope it would count for something that I was moved to violence on your brother’s behalf, and that _you_ were the one who hurt him first.”

Virgil rises and _looms_ in the cockpit. It’s a part of the world better suited to men Kyrano’s size than it is to men of Virgil’s. The smaller man doesn’t flinch. “I really think you want to leave.”

Kyrano takes another step backward, doesn’t quite need to duck to step through the door between the cockpit and the passenger bay. The door out on to the tarmac already hangs open. He pauses a moment longer, but it’s becoming apparent that this version of Virgil probably doesn’t make idle threats. “If you’re waiting for me, twelve hours from now,” he says, “Then I will answer questions about what happened on Cloudbase. For now, all I’ll tell you is that your brother encountered someone he didn’t expect. Sooner than later, I imagine you will, too.”

* * *

There exists a theory, in certain circles of philosophic academia, that the mind functions computationally.  That the complex systems and exchanges in the human brain resemble those that are found among the processes of a simple computer.  Though not developed by Alan Turing himself and in fact, proposed some years after his passing, the theory follows the path laid out by the legendary British scholar—its roots in theoretical biology and its stem standing tall against questions of artificial intelligence as a whole.  This is, decidedly, the only reason the theory gained any traction to begin with, for since it’s conception it has been disproven time and time again, even by its own creators.  After all, a Turing machine may be able to decode the German message, but that does not mean it can understand what the message says.

Still.  The boy in front of her seems to be fairly significant proof in the theory’s favor.

It would be easier, she thinks, if she didn’t know him.  If he were just another mission—just another stranger.  This profession is not conducive to ideals such as friendship or decency, but it is at least a profession they share.  It is a level on which each of them understand the other.  And they do.  Understand each other, that is.  Her house is full of people, but he is the only reason she is not alone.  She wishes she were alone.  This would be easier if she were alone.

He isn’t restrained—nothing of that nature.  If he were to try and run, he’d likely get lost in the tunnels, but it doesn’t much matter because he isn’t going to run.  The truth of the matter is that his wires are crossed, and he won’t make a move until he knows which voice in his head is giving the orders.  No input, no output.  Computational.  She has, however, stripped him of his hardware.  No more wallet, no more keys.  A little brass box of cyanide pills and cigarettes laced with… ah. Arsenic.  Of course.  

She wonders how the boy in Virgil’s stories ever came to be the man who carries death in his jacket pocket.  Most likely it has something to do with the fact that the boy is dead, and the man was never alive to begin with.

At least, at the legal level.  Personally, nothing could be less true, because of course he is alive.  She _knows_ the man lying before her.  She knows that he prefers to shoot left-handed, that he craves the smell of saltwater, and that sometimes he just stops to look up at the stars.  She knows that he’s the sort of bastard who will pop sugar cubes into his cheeks with that shit eating grin, and that he has scars.  So many scars running up and down his spine in long, crooked strikes.  She knows him just as well as he knows her—not as friends, but as rivals.  As people who so thoroughly know each other that they can hardly help whatever sort of admiration, infatuation, lust might follow.

She knows Agent Gerad C. Jonquil.  And he knows her.  That is no small accomplishment.

It’s selfish, maybe, to wonder if Gordon C. Tracy will know her.  If, after she’s uncrossed the wires and separated the files, she will once again be left alone.  Will Gordon shoot left-handed?  Will Gordon shoot at all?  Is Agent Jonquil a person, or is he simply a virus, working his way through the computational mind?  Perhaps her largest fear has nothing to do with Gordon whatsoever.  Perhaps her fears lie with Jonquil, and what becomes of programs that no longer belong to a computer.  

That is not a problem she is prepared to handle.  Not at the moment.  For now, the house is quiet.  Her guests are sleeping.  She steals one more glance at the boy—Gerad or Gordon, whomever he may truly be—before she decides that she will not stand here any longer and wait for the worst to happen.  She will not provide her dreams with any more fuel.  She makes her leave, navigates the tunnels, and has every intent to go to bed alone.  The boy who belongs to death will be waiting for her in the morning.

“Well,” says a voice, and Penelope freezes.  “That’s one place to put a door, I guess.”

It’s a bookcase, one of two embedded within the brick on either side of the fireplace.  The Lady emerges from the left hand case, feeling red on her hands.  She then, instantly, feels red in her cheeks, because there is a man standing before her and he is stripped down to his boxers.  “My, Marshal Teegarden.  I did think you were asleep.”

In fact, it’s possible that the Marshal _is_ asleep, but it takes her a moment to realize this.  Not until he slurs his words together in that snoozy, sleepy fashion does the word _sleepwalking_ cross her mind.  “Kahn’s Codebreakers?”

She pauses.  “Pardon?”

And his eyes finally leave the bookcase, landing on her with a smile.  “I am correct in assuming that this bookcase is a passageway to your panic room, no?”

He speaks very eloquently for a sleepwalker.  “Oh.  Well, due respect—“

“So which book is it, then?” he says.  “S’gotta be a lever, right?  You use Kahn’s Codebreakers.  Say, you’ve got a bathroom?”

She does, in fact, use David Kahn’s _The Codebreakers_ —a 1967 First Edition, no less.  How the Marshal knows this, she isn’t sure.  “Down the hall,” she answers.  “I feel I must warn you, Marshal, that if you infiltrated my safe house with the intent to—“

“Shhhhhh,” says the Marshal, and Penelope responds in the manner of a woman who has not been shushed in a very long time.  “I’m not trying to infiltrate anything, Penny.  Except your toilet.  I would very much like to infiltrate your toilet.”

“ _Penny_?” she manages, but the red in her cheeks now has less to do with boxers and more to do with all the shushing and the Pennying.  “I’m sorry, Marshal.  But exactly who do you think—?”

“Mmm,” he says, eyebrows crossing.  “Right.  Forgot.  You’re a Lady, here.  Lady Penelope.  Sorry Lady Penelope. Sorry.  Sor…”

There’s a yawn before his head nods into his chest.  Eyes closed, body swaying, the man is so tired that he’s fallen asleep while standing.  Penelope snaps her fingers, right between his eyes, and he bounces back up.  “Sorry.  Yeah, so sorry.  Lady Penelope.  Say, you’ve seen Gordon?  I just realized I haven’t seen him in… well.  S’been a while.  Is he okay?  Still dissociating?”   he laughs, careful.  Light.  “Of course he is.  Still talking to Gerad, I bet.”

“He’s actually sleeping,” she informs him.  “And by the look of it, you should do the same.”

“Can’t.  Bathroom,” he says, and he starts off again, but turns before he gets very far.  “Kind of a binary state, though, isn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, he’s either Gordon or Gerad,” the Marshal says.  “I mean, granted, he’s on the teetering edge—could be one or the other at any time.  Wants to be Gordon.  Uses Gerad.  Something, something, psychology.  Still.  Kinda seems like we could just… eliminate the secondary state.”

“You recommend we kill Gerad?”

It’s the sort of conversation that is designed for the shadows.  The kind of thing that can only be said in front of a fireplace that hasn’t been lit in months.  “Well,” says the Marshal.  “Gerad killed Gordon first.  And also Gerad isn’t real.  That helps.”

And he’s right.  It does help, to believe that Gerad isn’t real.  To believe that years as one identity cannot erase the last, or that a forged passport automatically creates a forged human being.  Unfortunately Penelope cannot convince herself of these ideas, because for all the stories she’s heard about Gordon, she’s experienced far more with Gerad.  “So it is your belief, then, that even though he has his own motives, his own intentions, his own beliefs, that Agent Jonquil does not exist at all?”

The Marshal blinks.  For whatever reason, this question seems to wake him up just a little bit more.  “No,” he says.  “No.  I guess, technically, he falls under the category of sentient intelligence.  It’s just that, he’s not real— _objectively_ not real.  Regardless of what we believe, factually he’s not even his own self.  He’s an extension of another self—a really, _really_ fucked up self.”

“Well then it isn’t a binary state, is it?”

“Are you telling me that, or are you asking?”

“Asking,” she says, and she looks up at the Marshal, wondering why it’s this easy to talk with him.  “I’m asking, because I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if it _is_ a binary state.”

He studies her, as if he suspects that she knows more than she is letting on.  As if they’re the oldest of friends, and he expects her to be better than this.  She has no idea what sort of legend has followed her since the Luddites, but she decides, in that moment, that she will one day find out.  “How old are you right now, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Definitely sleepwalking.  “The bathroom is just down the hall, Marshal Teegarden.  Please.  You need your rest.”

“Right,” he says.  “Well, regardless.  You’ll know what to do when the time comes.  You always do.  Just—hey.  Don’t try to do it alone, okay?”

And if the mind really did function computationally, she would know what to say.  She would know how to feel about this Marshal, about Jonquil, about everything and anything that was thrown her way.  Except she doesn’t.  The theory is bullshit.

“Lady Penelope?”

She looks up at the Marshal.  Smiles.  “Sure,” she says.  “Yes, certainly.  Wouldn’t dream of doing it alone.  Now, please.  Down the hall, and then back to bed.  Next time I see you, I expect you to be fully clothed.”

* * *

  * _4 dozen duck eggs_
  * _18 chicken breasts (on the bone)_
  * _400mg of prosciutto (Not jabon serrano!)_
  * _2 dozen apples (cox or braeburn preferable, gala in a pinch – no red delicious!!)_



Virgil does well with lists. Lists are easy.

  * _5 litres cows’ milk (semi-skinned)_
  * _3 litres almond milk_
  * _3 litres soy milk_



He wonders if Lady Penelope –Penny – eats like this all the time, and if so where she could possibly put it all. More probably this is a holdover from her lady of the manor upbringing. She can’t consider herself a true host unless she can lay on a banquet for forty people.

The wheels of the trolley squeak as he pushes it along the aisle. He’s in a Megamart on the outskirts of Oslo. The only other customers are pink-eyed insomniacs, trudging round in sweat pants, or in uniform at the end of long shifts.

  * _60 slices of maple cured bacon_
  * _2kg field mushrooms (organic)_



The labelling on everything is in Norwegian. He has no idea how to tell if it is maple cured or not. He gathers up a handful of slates of fatty bacon anyway, tosses them into the overloaded cart.

  * _15 mangos_
  * _Pork sausages_



He’s tired. A part of him wishes he could check into the airport hotel and sleep off the events of the day, or just pull the camp bed out at the back of the jet and doze for a while. It’s not that long before he’s going to need to be back in Oslo again, picking up the marshal and whatever trouble he drags along with him.

But doing that means leaving Penny to fend for herself for almost another day.

She said she’d be fine. She said she could handle herself.

_She can handle herself._

Still though.

  * _2 1L tubs of Chocolate butterscotch ice cream_



He ought to be getting back.

He wheels his cart to the check out and endures the bug-eyed stare of the cashier when he presents his trolley overflowing with duck pate and salmon darnes.

He loads up his boxes and sets out for the airport. Except there’s been a collision on the freeway since he passed that way forty minutes ago. An eighteen wheeler truck has overturned and slid across six lanes of traffic, catching cars coming in both directions like a fly swatter catching blue-bottles. All told he counts eleven vehicles. Emergency services are swarming over all over it, a symphony of red and blue.

He watches with detached fascination until a police officer waves him on, diverting traffic into the city.

He finds that his hand is trembling. He squeezes the wheel until the knuckles turn white, until the scars and bruises stand out red and blue against his skin. He pulls over.

It’s the middle of summer, but still cold enough that his breath mists into tiny crystals as he exhales. Over the wall lies a park and not too far ahead of him, a gate. It seems natural to go and stretch his legs.

The park is eerie in the darkness, full of strange, contorted statues. A giant, screaming baby looms out of the darkness, a young son looks up adoringly at his father, while another man flings and kicks his babies through the air. Virgil’s hairs stand up on the back of his neck. It all feels dreamlike. Too much of today has had the resonance of a dream about it.

There’s an obelisk up ahead, in the centre of the park. He sets off towards it with purposeful strides. He’s halfway down the avenue when his phone vibrates in his pocket.

Penelope is sitting on the couch. Her hair is up in a loose ponytail and she wears a grey hooded sweatshirt thrown over café au lait leggings and a mink coloured, silk pussybow blouse. Her knees are pressed to her chest. She looks tired but radiant. His heart aches a little at the sight of her.

“Are you okay?” they say in unison and share a smile.

“I’m fine.”

“Me too,” she whispers. “Our guests are asleep.”

“What about…?” He doesn’t even know what to call him. Gordon? Jonquil? The prisoner?

“Your brother too.”

“Okay,” he says, “Good.” There’s so much more he wants to say, but suddenly it’s like his tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth, like the words get stuck in his throat. “Is regular honey alright?” he asks eventually, “Only I couldn’t get Manuka.”

“That’s fine, Virgil.”

“Okay.” He nods. “Thanks. And I’ll be back soon.”

He’s in the shadow of the obelisk now. He takes a seat on the edge of the steps cresting up to it. His phone is heavy in his hand. Idly he swipes through his contact list. A. A-L.

It would be 8pm in Boston now. Not too late to call. He might catch him at dinner.

He told Penelope that he wanted Alan kept out of all of this, kept well away. She promised to put her best man on it, keep him safe, that he would not have to know anything about it until Virgil was ready. He had been grateful. Now he’s afraid.

His fingers slide over the screen.

_It’s me. Did I catch you at a bad time? How’s school? Are you still playing in that band? Got a girl? Hey, our brother is alive. Yeah, I know I’ve said it before, a thousand times. Yeah, I know you didn’t believe me then either. But it’s true. I’ve talked to him. I’ve touched him. He’s everything you don’t remember him being. I thought I was saving him, but they’ve hollowed him out, poured his soul down the drain and put themselves behind his eyes. Maybe I’ve just brought another body to bury._

His shoulders droop. He bites on his thumbnail as he tries to decide what he should be doing next.

He opens his wallet. He barely glances at the lined and scarred photo of five kids lounging at the beach that’s tucked into the lining before he pulls it out and turns it over. Scrawled on the back is a number, 35 digits long. He begins to dial.

It takes a long time for anyone to answer. When someone finally does it’s a young woman who picks up. She’s got dark hair, red lips, fashionably old fashioned glasses, a face just a little too severe to be pretty. He doesn’t know her. “Yes? Who is this?”

“His brother. I need to speak to him.”

He sees her suck her lower lip between her teeth, chew on it. “Mr Tracy is not available right now.”

“It’s important.”

“Sir, he’s not available right now.”

“When will he be available?”

“If you would like to leave a message for him, then I’ll make sure he receives it when he’s free.”

“No. I’ll call back.”

He hangs up. For a moment he feels the heft of the phone in his hand and imagines throwing it, smashing it against the granite steps, watching it shatter into a million pieces.

He drops it back into his pocket.

He rises, and it’s only then that he notices the obelisk. It’s not flat stone, rather it’s a monolith carved of figures, hundreds of human figures, live-size and naked, male and female, adults and children, clambering over each other, pushing each other down, trying to get to the top of the pillar.

It seems like a bad omen.

He hurries back to his truck.

* * *

EOS wakes him with the gentle strains of _Peer Gynt_ in his ear, though he’s hardly in the mood for morning at a quarter past five AM. He grumbles at the chorus of strings and swats at his ear, before remembering the reasons why he’d asked her to wake him and shoving himself upright, leaning over to peer at the figure curled up beside him.

“He’s fine,” EOS whispers, even as Scott ascertains the same, noting soft snoring and the tiniest twitch of his brother’s fingertips where his hand clasps his pillow. The music fades away. “Sorry. Thank you for checking, but no, I only meant to wake you because Virgil’s making his approach. He’ll land in approximately five minutes.”

Scott’s not sure why this manifests itself as dread, gooey and uncomfortable in the pit of his stomach, coating the painful edges of hunger pangs. He swallows and grimaces at the way his tongue tastes as he sits up and rubs at his jaw, itchy and irritating with scruff. “Mm’yeah. Right. Okay.”

“The Lady Penelope moved Gordon to a lower level of the house. He is not conscious; drugged, I think, though I can make no estimate of how long this will last. At present, he is not a concern. The Lady herself is dozing on the couch in the living room. She has a handgun between the cushions, so try not to startle her.”

 _Who the fuck_ is _this lady_? Scott wonders to himself and shoves himself up off the bed, stifling a yawn. Behind him, John mutters something and shuffles beneath the duvet. Instead of rolling over or stretching himself out into the newly vacated space, he just shivers slightly and balls himself up tighter. Scott watches him and chews his lower lip for a moment, hopeful for company, but realistic about the fact that John needs to rest. “Guess I should let him sleep, huh?” he asks EOS, though he’s already fairly sure of the answer.

“Wake him and I’ll deafen you in this ear.”

He’s sure she knows just how easily this threat is circumvented, but that’s probably not the point she’s making by making it. “Right.” He eases carefully off the bed and doesn’t bother with his boots as he shuffles quietly around the foot of the bed.

His duffel’s been stashed in the corner of the room on top of a folded woolen blanket, on top of a chair. He retrieves his bag and tiptoes out of the room, down the hallway and into the bathroom to change clothes. His slept-in jeans and t-shirt are starting to get topographical, ridged with creases and wrinkles. The contents of his jam-packed bag won’t be much better and are starting to get a little ripe, besides. Scott unzips the top and takes an unadvisedly deep sniff—so, okay, actually kind of a _lot_ ripe. He dumps the contents on the floor and hopes they’ll air out a bit.

“Virgil’s just landed,” EOS says in his ear.

 _Shit_. Scott’s never been the best at tracking the passage of time, and he’d hoped for a little bit longer. Nothing for it. He’ll be a bit rushed, but he’s not sure how long it’ll be until he next catches some privacy, and this needs to be done.

He drops his jeans into a heap and kicks them into the corner of the room. The t-shirt’s next, but this takes longer. Lifting his arm hurts—and this is understating the case, but Scott’s always believed in understatement as a tool in the world of pain management—but he manages to peel it over his head and drop it to the floor.

The gash that carves from his left shoulder across his chest is pulled raggedly together by jagged needlework, and in the dawn light through the small bathroom window makes it look the worst that it has ever since it happened. Bruising and specks of dried blood and bits of broken black thread. Uncertainly, he runs the tap and reaches for one of the hand towels by the sink. These are pure, Scandinavian white and he pauses, thinks better of it, retrieves his t-shirt instead.

He balls it up and dampens it beneath the tap and takes a deep, steadying breath as he swabs delicately at the wound. The first pass stings, but isn’t terrible, and he clamps his lower lip between his teeth as he rinses away the worst of it. It’s healed to the point that the two or three busted stitches haven’t resulted in too much bleeding, but the exposed edges of the wound still make him curse and damn his stupidity and his circumstances, but _mostly_ his stupidity.

“EOS?” he asks. “Uh. It’s, uh, it’s just Virgil, hey?”

“He’s alone. He’s unloading cargo now. Lady Penelope had contacted him with a supply list, earlier. I anticipate he’ll make several trips.”

“So no doctor.” Scott’s not sure what sort of doctor Kyrano’s going to come back with, but he’d been hoping to tap them on the shoulder and ask if they had a minute for a look at his own…his…his whole situation. Less serious than whatever John’s got going on, but still. Painful. Reddening around the edges. Warm to the touch, a little, though he tells himself he might be imagining that. Maybe. “Fuck.”

There’s the very faintest sound of a camera lens, the tiniest whir of the tiniest servo and Scott suddenly realizes that there’s something of a shine about the eyes of one of the pugs, depicted in a portrait on the bathroom wall. “Ah.” There’s a moment of silence and he’d almost swear it’s a silence that conceptualizes the roll of nonexistent eyes. “I’ve decided to rank you at the very bottom as pertains to the intelligence of my current associates. That’s you. You’re the stupidest one. Congratulations. Make yourself a cap and sit in the corner.”

Scott glares at her and gives up, shakes his t-shirt out and starts to pull it back over his head, ignoring the damp patch he’s . “You don’t know how the hell I wound up with—” he starts, peevish, but she cuts him off.

“I know you might have mentioned this to a competent ally far sooner than now.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott mutters and kicks through his pile of laundry. A pair of khakis seem to be the least offensive and he hauls these on. He stuffs the rest of his clothes back into his bag and wonders if there’s anywhere to do laundry. “It’s fine. Never mind. My problem.”

“You may wake John,” she tells him, grudgingly. “He’ll help. And I shall instruct him to smack you in head, for being _very stupid_.”

“Yeah, right. Pass.” Scott strides past the bedroom door and ignores EOS’ instruction. This offends her and she whines shrilly in his ear, but Scott yanks the earpiece out and backtracks to the cracked open door, reaches a hand in and tosses lobs the earpiece onto the bed.

He remembers the warning about the handgun and the lady, and makes maybe more noise than might be strictly necessary on the stairs down to the living room. He peeks around the corner of the landing. A pair of pale blue eyes examine him from a balled up nest of cashmere and wool, nestled in the corner of the couch. Penelope watches as he enters the room and Scott feels uncomfortably like he’s being needled at by her gaze. He retreats into military politeness and the gawky awkwardness that tends to be expected of young men confronting slightly older women. “Ma’am. Uh. Morning, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am, ‘pologies if I woke you.”

“You didn’t. Quite all right,” she answers and shifts slightly, though she makes no move to uncoil herself from the couch. “How is Marshal Teegarden?”

“Fine as far as I can tell, your ladyship, ma’am. Better, anyway. Uh. Or is it ‘my lady’?”

“Lady Penelope, my lady, or ma’am are all perfectly acceptable,” she answers, though she smiles faintly. “You needn’t double up, Marshal Spellman. Is your superior still sleeping?”

“Yes’m. I don’t plan on waking him, ma’am, unless you need something from him?”

“No, do leave him be. Poor lamb.”

Scott nods and the colour creeping into his cheeks is possibly due to _actual_ rather than affected awkwardness. “Thank you, ma’am, for your hospitality. We’re much obliged.”

Penelope nestles further down into her blankets and her gaze is unabashedly intent. “I imagine we’re all due for an accounting of what’s owed to whom,” she remarks, and her eyes fall upon his bag. “Laundry?” she inquires.

“Yes’m. Uh. If possible, my lady.”

“In the kitchen.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

He finds the washer and dryer in the corner of the kitchen, behind a double door. Numbly and rather unable to think of anything except how much his chest smarts and stings, he stuffs clothing in the washer and then dumps in what’s probably too much soap, and then turns it on. Water floods into the drum and he just stands and listens for a while, before shrugging himself out of it and shaking his head.

Maybe he could ask her ladyship for a hand. He wonders just where EOS rates _her_ on the hierarchy of stupid people in this stupid house. Gotta be better than no one at all.

But the living room is deserted when he steps back out of the kitchen, and the house has fallen silent. Scott can hear no movement on the floor above, so maybe Penelope’s gone to check on Gordon. Or maybe she ducked outside for a breath of fresh air. The front door is nearer and Scott pulls it open, clamps a hand to the top of the lintel and leans out into the chill of the early Norwegian morning.

And it’s not Penelope on the path up through the wood, but Virgil, who’s slipped entirely from Scott’s mind, and stands in front of him now with a stony expression and his arms full of a crate of grocery bags. Scott’s not sure why his heart plummets down into his shoes, but something about this version of his brother seems to punch a hole through his spine.

He stammers, awkward, and says the sort of thing that the stupidest person here might say, “Hey, uh, it’s you. I don’t suppose you brought breakfast?”

* * *

Dawn comes at 4am here, so far north are they, so it’s bright when he reaches the safe house.

Time is not on his side. He’ll have barely three hours to shower and nap before he has to turn around and return to Oslo. Suddenly his desire to return and check on Penny seems foolish. What the hell does he think he’s going to be able to do for her?

_Stupid man._

He hefts the first of six boxes of groceries up the hill towards the house. It _seems_ quiet. All the lights are out. Maybe they are all still asleep, he can slip in, slip out.

But there’s a figure hanging by the door. Hanging from the door, actually, swinging off the lintel.

“Hey, uh, it’s you. I don’t suppose you brought breakfast?”

In the honey-coloured light of mid-morning, Virgil freezes at the sound of his brother’s voice.  

But then the figure blocking the doorway rocks on the souls of his feet, and the shaft of light dyeing his brown hair gold shifts, and the figure, while still tall and lean, is the wrong shape around the shoulders and the voice is too uncertain, too awkward.

Virgil breathes again.  

It’s not Alan. Alan is hundreds of miles away. Alan doesn’t know about any of this.

Marshal Spellman lets go of the lintel and takes a step towards Virgil, arms out to take the box. “Here, let me – ”

“I’ve got it.” Virgil shies away from him.

“Right.” Spellman’s hands drop to his sides, then burrow into his pockets. “Sorry.”

Now that he looks again, there’s absolutely nothing to put him in mind of Alan. In the two years since he’s been away, Alan’s grown worldly and sophisticated. He wears blazers now, keeps his hair in a carefully mussed rakish mop, and has the first 200 digits of Pi tattooed in a ring around his wrist, the orbital vector of Halley’s comet on his bicep.

There’s nothing about Spellman that suggests sophistication. He’s wearing khakis that are an inch too short on the leg, and there’s a hole in one of his sports’ socks, where his big toe peeps out. A splodge of damp is spreading across his t-shirt from beneath his right armpit. With his bare toe scratching at the decking, he looks like a scolded kid.

But he doesn’t fly like a scolded kid. His flying had been a _revelation._ It had been a sky dance of equal parts technical skill and pure instinct, an amalgam of carefully honed precision and ‘think outside the box’ recklessness. And just like a song he had forgotten he even knew the melody to, Virgil had known just what to do, matched every move, anticipated every action, fell into step like they had been doing this all their lives. They had barely exchanged a word. They hadn’t needed to. They’d fallen from Heaven with a host of avenging angels in pursuit and it had felt _easy._

Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to look at the kid. Maybe that’s why it feels like he’s betrayed something deep and personal. That ease, that _joy_ was supposed to be something that he had lost, buried with Dad and John and the part of Scott that still gave a shit about anything or anyone at all.

He’s not supposed to share it with some cocky, lying, punk of a kid.

Maybe it’s just the desire not to have to look at Spellman that makes Virgil jerk his head in the direction of the landing strip. “There’s more.”

Spellman jumps to attention. “No problem.”  Virgil’s old running shoes are lined up at the door, next to Jonquil’s shiny brogues and Penny’s pink snow boots. Spellman kicks his feet into them and leans down to pull the tongues out. “Be right back.” He takes off.

Virgil never taught Alan how to fly. He wonders what his dad would have thought of that.

He goes inside the house.

By the time Spellman arrives with the second box of groceries, Virgil’s nearly finished unloading his own crate and storing away the food in fridges and presses. “Her ladyness sure knows how to shop,” he says, trying to sound jolly, “Are you guys settling in for the winter?”

“Something like that.”

There’s a loud _crunch_ as the kid bites into an apple. He starts guiltily as Virgil glares at him. “Sorry, only it’s been about 36 hours since I last ate, and that was only a passing acquaintance. Do you think anyone would mind if I started cooking some of this bacon? Or, I can make omelettes,” he says in the face of Virgil’s continued silence. “Basil and goat’s cheese? Would you want one? Maybe?”

“Do whatever you want.”

“Oh, okay. Cool.”

“But you better look after that first.”

It’s only then that Spellman looks down and notices the wine-coloured stain that’s started to seep through the white cotton of his t-shirt. “Shit!”

He drops the box on the counter and hurries upstairs. Virgil hears the bathroom door bang. After a minute, he follows.

He doesn’t bother to knock. Spellman is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, pawing at a long gash of a wound that starts in the meat of his left deltoid and continues like a ragged grin almost as far as his breast bone. He’s pulling a thin seam of black thread away from the wound, even as his t-shirt is balled up against it, stemming the fresh blood flow. Looks like he’s popped a couple of stitches.

“Hey, get out! I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Virgil pulls the door closed, goes downstairs, fetches a medkit, and returns.

“Hey, come on, man, little privacy!”

Virgil ignores him, puts the toilet seat down, sits on it. “Let me see.” This time it’s the kid’s turn to shy away, as Virgil takes the t-shirt from his grip. “Jesus.”

It’s a nasty wound, made with a serrated blade, most like. It’s shallowest across the chest, and this is where the stitches have held, but it’s taken a big bite out of his shoulder. It’s got that dusky hyperaemic look of brewing infection. “It’s going to need fresh stitches.”

“Yeah, no shit.” He yelps as Virgil presses the t-shirt against it again. “Knock it off!”

“No. Hold this.” The kid takes the t-shirt back.

Virgil takes out a suture, a sterile forceps and antiseptic swabs, balances them on the cistern. “I don’t have local anaesthetic,” he says. “So you’re going to have to suck it up.”

The kid eyes him reproachfully and despite all his earlier reassurances to himself that they have nothing in common, he’s reminded again of Alan. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

Spellman bites down on the fist of his good hand as the needle goes through the first pucker of flesh, but doesn’t flinch as the thread weaves in and out through his skin. His fingers of his right hand drum on the top of the bathroom. A one, two-two, three-three-three rhythm that Virgil can’t help but be distracted by.

“Stop fidgeting.”

“ _I’m not.”_

“You are.”

“Hey, I’ve an idea. How ‘bout I stab you in the shoulder and _you_ hold perfectly still?” He’s quiet for a while after that, and let’s Virgil do his work, but as Virgil’s looping off his double knot he says, “You’re a good pilot. Were you always that good?”

“Always?”

“I mean, did you learn when you were a kid? Did you always know you loved to fly?”

“I don’t love to fly.”

“Right, no. Of course not.” The kid looks away. “You do a good patch job though. Younger brothers?”

“What? No.”

“You don’t have younger brothers?”

“None of your business.”

“You really don’t like me, do you?”

“Fuck off.”

Virgil cuts the last suture, smears antibiotic paste over the wound, puts a clean dressing over it. “There. Keep it clean. I’ll give you some spare dressings.”

“Thanks… Sergeant.” He rolls his shoulder.

“You might as well call me Virgil,” he washes his hands, in the mirror the kid nods but doesn’t offer a reciprocal name. “I’ll see if I can find you a t-shirt to borrow.”

His bag’s on the bed in one of the guest rooms. He digs through it and finds a spare grey t-shirt, returns to the hall.

Spellman’s got the door to the other guest room open a crack, is peering inside at the redhead still asleep in the bed.

“Here.” He tosses him the t-shirt. It bounces off Spellman’s bad arm and lands in a heap on the floor. He scoops it up. “Thanks.” He ducks inside the guest bedroom.

There’s no sign of Penelope in her bedroom or downstairs. She must be down below. Virgil knows that subterranean parts of the house exist, he knows that Gordon is probably confined down there, but Penelope has kept how to access them concealed.  There are more boxes to unload anyway.

By the time he’s got everything up and packed away it’s almost time to return to Oslo. Snatching sleep for such a short space seems futile, and Penelope’s still occupied so he decides to head away early. He walks back down to the jet, glad to be free of the place..

He’s airborne and cruising at 20,000 feet before the lavatory door clicks open and Spellman drops into the seat beside him. “Hey.”

Virgil has to stop himself yanking hard on the yoke. “No. No! Fuck off. Not this shit again.”

“Uh, you haven’t eaten, you haven’t slept, you’re in contravention of pretty much every International Aviation Authority statute. The least you could do is take a co-pilot with you so you don’t crash into a fjord. Here. Breakfast.”

He drops a wax-wrapped parcel onto his lp. Inside is a mozzarella, tomato and basil sandwich on ciabatta, which is Virgil’s favourite, though Spellman couldn’t know that. He takes a bite, chews slowly.

“I’ll set course for Oslo, and you can call me... Si,” says Spellman. “For now.”

* * *

He feels her heartbeat.

Well, not initially.  There are many things he feels before he locks in on her, starting with the thick, dusty weight that coats his mouth.  With the obscenely high thread count against the soft part of his arm and the deep red creases that hash across his skin.  There’s a light buzzing against his inner ear and a chill seeps in through concrete walls.  He feels the tightness in his chest, the fatigue in his limbs.  Someone’s pulled _hard_ at the string in his back.  Sooner or later he’s bound to start talking.  

He groans.  “Un _necessary_ , Pen.”

He doesn’t turn.  Doesn’t dare move.  He feels the shift of each individual vertebrae, feels the resistance of every last disk.  Instead he lays right where he was put, face down in another windowless room, waiting to feel her voice as it wraps a ribbon around his throat.  “I didn’t do it out of necessity, darling,” she says.  “I did it to see the look on your face when you realized I had bested you—again, might I add.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Oh, entirely so.”

“Some might say that was a cheap trick,” he says.  “But I’ll allow it.”

“How generous of you,” she returns.  “And anyways some might say you’ve earned it.”

“Y’know, just because you have a reputation for being frigid, it doesn’t mean you have to live up to it.”  He turns his head ever so slightly until he spots her standing on the other side of the room, each arm tucked into the other like she has anything in the world to feel insecure about.  “It’s me you’re talking to, here.  I know all your dirty little secrets.”

She smiles.  Almost.  It’s a tick of her lips, and it somehow reminds him of every puzzle he’s never solved.  “By all means, continue to think that.  You will be doing me a great service.”

“That’s cute, sweetheart.  Real cute—hey.  While you’re here, d’you mind telling me if my back is broken?  Seems like the kinda thing a guy outta know.”

“Definitively not broken,” she informs him.  “But quite sore, I imagine.”

“Did I—?”

“Yes.”

“Was it—?”

“Dreadfully hard to watch.”

“And right in front of all my new friends, too.”  His sigh is the sort of movement that sinks into the mattress.  He feels the creak in his joints, feels the night of unyieldingly deep sleep bleed black through his veins.  He feels her heartbeat.  “ _Fuck_.”

It’s the kind of scream that could have made her jump, if she were the type of person who ever startled.  If she didn’t know all his dirty little secrets just as well as he knew hers.  “Oh, don’t start,” she tells him.

“This is _his_ fault.  Fucking—fucking _Gordon_.”  The word comes out venomous, spat back into the world with all the same poison he’s always heard.  Gordon.  Weak, selfish Gordon, who can’t stop crying.  Who can’t even _think_ about that flip in his gut without entering a state of panic.  Who can’t stand on his own two feet.  He’s nothing.  He’s _nothing_.  This is his fault, his fault, his fault.  “Gordon, Gordon, this is his fault.  This is Gordon’s fault.”

“You are Gordon.”

“I’m _not_.”

And he has to prove her wrong, has to be stronger than the kid who panics.  He feels the screams in his shoulders, feels the fall in his gut.  The process seems longer than it actually is, grueling and intense, but then he’s up, and he’s standing tall, and he’s not Gordon.  “I am Agent Gerard Jonquil.  I’m _better_ than him.”

“You’re _not_.”  It’s always been strange, the way she can look him dead in the eye.  “You’ve always been a slippery man, untrustworthy, disloyal—at least to anyone outside of your _blessed_ organization.”

“Oh, yeah.  Entirely untrustworthy.  Tell me again, princess, was it in Cairo or Sibiu that I saved your life?” he laughs, but it’s anything except genuine.  “Because, y’know, I just can’t remember.”

The answer is both.  It sits between them, silent but dense.

“And then tell me again, which mission I gave _you_ the files on—“

“Because you didn’t need them—“

“But _you_ did.  And maybe I would have gotten less shit if I had just brought them home.  Let SPECTRUM burn them.  Keep them out of the hands of people _like you_.”

“Oh, for the love of—“

“You sleep with the window open, even though it exposes you to threat.  You won’t eat your toast unless it’s hellishly, blasphemously burnt.  You shoot left-handed, and when the sun starts to set and you’ve had a glass and a half of wine after a long, _hard_ day, you like to—“

“Enough.”

“You want to throw secrets out there, that’s fine, Pen.  But I’m gonna throw them right back.  It’s not my fault you liked me more before you knew I was someone else.  It’s not my fault you know that secret.  It’s not my fault.  Nothing’s my fault.  It’s not my fault, okay?”

He’s close, now.  She’s not enough of an idiot to let herself get backed into the wall, but she does stand her ground, and that might just be even more idiotic.  He feels her breath, heavy with morning.  He feels her gaze, burning with accusation.  He feels her heartbeat.  

Her.  “It’s Gordon’s fault?”

Him. “Should have killed him when I had the chance.”

Her.  “So you’re different, the two of you.  A Binary.”

Him.  “Night and day, sweet pea.  Gordon’s weak.  He’s stupid.  And he wouldn’t do this.”

It’s supposed to be electric.  It’s supposed to be all-encompassing.  His lips on hers is supposed to fix everything, because that’s what happens with the two of them.  They tear each other down until they work each other up, and up, and—

She shoves him away.  Bright blue eyes dance across his features, trying to piece the puzzle together.  “Who _are_ you?” she says.  “Do you even know?  Because I don’t.”

And yeah.  That stings a little.  Because if there’s anyone who’s supposed to know—if there’s anyone who’s supposed to _understand_ —it’s her.  It’s always been her.  Fucking Gordon.  “I need a smoke.”

This time, it’s Penelope who reaches into a pocket.  She pulls out a familiar cardboard box, tugs on the third cigarette to the left, row closest to her, and tosses it on the bed.  Her eyes don’t stray from his when she speaks.  “By all means, Jonquil.”

She pays him no more attention, then.  Simply leaves the room through one of the four doors.  He wonders what time it is.  Wonders how far underground they are.  He doesn’t feel her heartbeat anymore.

Except.

“I did it for the dreams.”  Her voice carries down the corridor.  She stops, but she doesn’t look at him.  Doesn’t matter.  She already knows this secret.  About the things that go bump in the night, when a boy kills his family.  “Those damn dreams you always have.  You needed your rest and you weren’t going to get it with those dreams.”

“So you drugged me,” he says.  “Y’know, if there’s one thing I love about this relationship, it’s how obviously healthy it is.”

“Did you have the dreams?” she asks.

And in fact, he did not, but he doesn’t say so.  Doesn’t need to.  She already knows the answer.  

“Those aren’t Jonquil’s dreams, are they?” she says, and she already knows the answer to that one, too.  Doesn’t hang around much longer.  Instead, he just watches her leave, thinking about all the dirty little secrets the two of them have, and all the secrets he doesn’t know.

* * *

As much as it must disappoint his pilot, Kyrano is waiting on the runway—in exactly the same place he was left—twelve hours to the minute from when Virgil had taken off.

He sits behind the wheel of a small rental car, and as the plane taxis to a halt, he opens the driver’s side door and circles around to lean against the hood of the car. Now that they’ve come to a stop, there’s an audible thumping from the trunk of the vehicle. For the moment, Kyrano ignores this.

It’s Scott and not Virgil who shoves open the hatch at the side of the plane, and Kyrano nods to him, gets a thumbs-up in answer. This seems to encompass the question of the continued security of the safehouse, of John’s health and Gordon’s continued sanity, and how Lady Penelope had fared with three misfitted members of various universe under her roof for a period of twelve hours.

“Hi, Ben!” Scott calls, and waves as he starts to descend from the steps. “Hey, where’s—”

Kyrano’s circled around to the back of the car and popped the trunk. In the back, folded up, hooded, and cuffed with a rugged nylon ziptie about his wrists—is about six feet worth of the man he’d known he would find, clad in hip waders and a fly fishing vest, with his sleeves still rolled up to the shoulders. Beneath the burlap sack he still wears a slightly misshapen bucket hat, with fishing flies adorning the band.

When Kyrano grabs the man’s elbow and helps haul him out of the trunk, Scott freezes on the stairs and his expression drops into mild concern, even as Kyrano gives his guest a shove, guides stumbling steps in the direction of the plane. “ _Uh_ …” he starts, then his hand catches his chin, fingers pressing against his lips, possibly to prevent all his doubts from spilling out at once. His eyebrows have shot nearly all the way to his hairline and he gives Kyrano a wide-eyed look that says _are-you-serious-right-now_. “Is this…uh…who’s… _what are we doing, here, exactly?_ ”

“Minor kidnapping. Quite all right,” Kyrano informs him blithely. He elbows his companion in the ribs, and inquires, “Are you well, Herr Doktor? No objection to being forcibly borrowed?”

“Oh, _ja!_ Certainly, there is no objection. It is all very exciting, isn’t it? Is this my patient?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. A few more hours transit.”

The grin is in the man’s voice as he answers, German accent thick and his tone bright, cheerful. “The _suspense_! You have given me _very_ few hints, Herr Krishna, I am all aflutter.”

“Aboard with you, then, and mind how you go up the steps. Out of the way, please, Spellman.”

Scott steps obligingly aside, backs up to block the cockpit door even as Kyrano escorts his newest charge aboard, perfectly, cheerfully compliant. Scott’s still plainly concerned, chewing his lower lip as he lowers his voice and says, “Virgil’s not gonna like—”

“Marshal, what the _fuck_.”

Vehemently, right over Scott’s shoulder, and the younger man hares away from the cockpit, darts to the door, calling, “Gonna check our exterior, just…sake of prudence, y’know, some quick preflights—uh, don’t leave without me.”

"There's a footlocker in the back seat of the car. Fetch it please, Simon. Mind how you go, it's heavy."

"Yessir."

And then he’s gone and Kyrano’s left alone with Virgil, who’s folded his arms across his chest and is glaring daggers at his two newest passengers. Before anyone else can speak, the hostage speaks up again, “Ah, is _this_ my patient! _Guten morgan_! What seems to be the affliction, _mein freund_? I shall make a proper examination presently, just as soon as we are wherever it is I am not meant to know about!”

“A few more hours, Herr Doktor,” Kyrano repeats, utterly unconcerned by Virgil’s towering disapproval, as he ushers the doctor to one of the passenger seats and gets him situated and comfortably strapped in. “Your patience is appreciated.”

“Your _patient_ is appreciated,” the man answers, muffled through his hood and then there’s an unexpected giggle as he laughs at his own joke. “A _most_ intriguing case! I am retired, of course, but always a pleasure to consult on matters of medical interest.”

“Marshal, a _word_ , please.” Virgil ducks back into the cockpit.

Kyrano carefully adjusts the placement of the doctor’s hood and then steps through the cockpit door to join Virgil in the front of the plane once again. “You’re not with the fucking GDF,” he declares, as a start, as though this hasn’t already been established.

“No,” Kyrano agrees mildly.

Virgil’s expression is baleful, and he’s hunched his shoulders up, puffed up his chest, made himself look huge and threatening, only Kyrano’s not threatened, even as he continues— “ _None_ of you are, not you, not that damned cocky hotshot kid, not the redhead—and just what the fuck is wrong with _him_ , that you need to _kidnap a goddamn doctor_ and can’t just take him to a goddamn hospital? Penelope told me he seems in bad enough shape that he might be dying. I don’t figure why you’d wanna dick around with that.”

“He’ll need a specialist, and someone who’s practiced in uncharacteristic situations, and possessed of a certain level of professional discretion,” Kyrano answers, as though it’s the most reasonable thing in the world that he’s kidnapped a medical professional and expects a lift back to the safehouse he’s all but _commandeered_ in the Norwegian wilderness. “Did you happen to have a talk with your co-pilot?” he asks, non-sequitur.

“My co-pilot _stowed away_ , and I should’ve pitched his ass out as soon as I found him,” Virgil snarls back. “And _you_ ….I should call the cops—I should call _the GDF_ —I sure as hell shouldn’t be putting up with this fucking _bullshit_ , the three of you running all around and through this stupid fucking situation, like you’ve got _anything_ to do with it at all.”

Kyrano hears Scott behind him, clambering back aboard and then after a few moments of hesitation, making a solicitous inquiry as to the well-being of their passenger, an awkwardly adolescent, “uh, hey, sir, are you…uh…comfortable?” This leads him into a bright, chattered conversation about just how _exciting_ the whole affair is, and does Scott happen to know whether _the patient_ is perhaps patient-zero for some fascinating new outbreak of disease?

Scott’s trust began as a tenuous thing, but he’s securely on Kyrano’s side now. And even though it’s easy to dismiss his youth, he’s still becoming a valuable asset. Kyrano has to wonder just what the differences are, that Virgil can’t see Scott for who he is.

But it wasn’t Scott who broke Gerad Jonquil’s hold over Gordon Tracy. It wasn’t Scott whose existence unraveled the thread winding all through one of SPECTRUM’s finest—and Kyrano knows enough about their programming to know that this was no small feat; that only a blow aimed precisely at a fault line would have shattered Jonquil’s persona so completely. So he asks again, repeats the question he’d asked of Virgil twelve hours ago, standing in almost this exact same spot— “Aren’t you meant to have a question for me?”

“ _No_.” Virgil drops into the pilot’s seat again, crams his headset back on his head and starts to make his way through the instrumentation, through the sequence to prepare for takeoff. “I’ll take you back. You, the kid, whoever that poor fucker in the hood is. But I don’t want—we don’t _need_ —anything else from you. We get back, and you’ll get _gone_.”

“Perhaps.” Kyrano very much doubts that this will be the case. He’s counting on a lot of things—on what Gordon needs, on what Penelope’s sure to suspect, by now—but mostly on the fact that the right question, asked of Virgil, might be enough to break _his_ outer shell; the hard crust of anger and stubbornness. Once again, he knows better than to spend a great deal more time in Virgil’s company. Rage radiates off him like heat. “If you have no question for me, Virgil Tracy, then I’ll leave you with a question of your own to puzzle over; there’s a dying man in your future. There’s a dead man in your past. Have you wondered at all about what they have in common?”

 


	7. The Benefits of Symbiotic Souls

  _"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."_

_\- Maya Angelou_

* * *

There is something to be said for Norwegian sunlight.   She’s not sure what makes it so different from the sunlight in London or the sunlight in Paris, but it’s one of her favorite things about this particular safe house.   The Norwegian sun is exceptionally golden in the morning, slicing through the slits in sheer curtains, glittering on specs of dust as they dance through mountain air.   It lands in long, crooked slats atop heavy white duvet, and for a moment she has to wonder if Midas ever envied the sun.

Marshal Teegarden is wrapped up in blankets, his hair a red robin in a sky of white.   She hears him muttering to himself, though it appears to be nothing of a great importance because he rolls towards her before she can even knock.   “Lady Penelope,” he says.   “Good morning.”

She smiles—can’t _help_ but smile—because he’s looking at her like she deserves the world and even though she already knows this fact, she’s not quite sure how he does.   “Marshal,” she says.   “We’ve made breakfast.   Given your current condition I thought it best to bring it to you.”

He pushes himself up, falls back into the pillows.   The Norwegian sun catches his hair and spins it into gold.   “Bacon?” he asks.

“Bagel, I’m afraid,” she tells him.   “I’m hesitant to hand over any red meats, considering.”

“Probably smart,” he says.   “But I’m not happy about it, and will probably take out all of my frustrations on you.”

“Noted.”  

She brings the tray to him—bagel, cheese, a fully set place at the table without having to actually walk to the table.   Not that she thinks he’s incapable, but even so it must be easier this way.   She just wants to make everything a little bit easier.   That is, after all, what a host is meant to do, is it not?   There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be easier.

There is a question in her mind she can’t answer, and it should be so much easier.

“Is, um,” he starts, gulping down a bite of bagel.   “Is everything okay?”

“Of course,” she tells him.   “Why?   What has you thinking otherwise?”

He shakes his head.   “Nothing,” he says.   “Nothing, it’s just that people don’t usually, um, sit around and watch other people eat breakfast, is all.”

And it does seem a bit strange, now that he’s gone and said it out loud.   She’s usually so good about reading these sorts of situations, except there is something about this man, secretive and flighty though he may be, that seems easier than it should be.   “Nothing too pressing,” she tells him.   “Only I was thinking about the conversation we had last night.”

His chewing slows, and he squints like he’s trying to see the memory through a thick fog.   “Was I…?” he says.   “Did I have pants on?”

“Well.   Boxers, at least,” she says.

“Yikes,” he says.   “Sorry about that.   Not my best angle.”

And it’s true that he hadn’t looked well.   Long, scrawny limbs, hips poking through paper skin.   An unforgiving scar, carved into his chest.   His skin had been grey in he night and she remembers thinking that he would do well to stand in the sun.   Still.   “I’ve seen far worse than yourself, Marshal.   And one of them is in my panic room.”

He grants a nod at this, takes another bite.   “How is he doing?” he says.   “I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“About as well as you’d expect,” she confides.   “I imagine he’d be doing better if he weren’t tucked away in that room, but he’s too unpredictable.   And too clever.   I can’t risk having him take off—Virgil will have somebody’s head, and anyways, I need information from him.”

“Did you ever figure it out?” he asks.   “Binary or not?”

“I think not,” she says.   “But I’m also beginning to think it doesn’t matter.   He may think of Gordon as a separate mind, but I’m not sure that we can afford to.   At this point it seems that the two of them are so intermingled that one can’t survive without the other.   Take away Gerad and you’re left with an exposed nerve.   Take away Gordon and… well.   I'm not quite sure what will happen, but I’m certain I won’t like it.”

The marshal nods solemnly and she can’t stop herself from thinking how refreshing this is, to have someone who does more listening than they do talking.  

“I must admit that I’m embarrassingly inexperienced with this sort of situation,” she says.   “Give me four armed guards on a Venetian safe and I won’t even blink, but this is… above my pay grade.   Is it possible for two souls to share a single body?”

This gets a tweak of his lips.   A shift in his shoulders.   He’s a very good listener, so much so that he’s heard something she hasn’t even said.   He swallows his mouthful, takes a breath, and gives one more firm nod.   “I want to agree,” he says.   “I do.   But I’m afraid I don’t know the circumstances.   There are times when, even if it isn’t the preferred option, sharing becomes necessary.   Maybe Jonquil isn’t subject to binary as much as he is to symbiosis.   It’s like you said—they can’t survive without the other.   You’ll know better than I do, but in my experience, two souls in one body is not strictly unnecessary.”

“Symbiosis requires a benefit from both parties,” she points out.   “Gordon gains from Jonquil, certainly, but what possibly benefit could Jonquil gain from Gordon?”

The sun has inched over the marshal’s hand, and he’s frilling his fingers through it, watching it dance.   He smiles, in on a joke she doesn’t know.   “I imagine there are plenty of benefits to sharing a soul with Gordon.”

There’s something he isn’t telling her, something that’s going to string this whole story together once she finds it out, but even still she looks at the marshal and can’t feel any resentment towards him.   Her suspicion is suppressed by the overwhelming sense of safety he seems to give off.   She doesn’t know Marshal Teegarden, but she could.   “Why do I trust you?” she needs to know.

He smiles, as if he knows this answer, too.   “Soulmates in another life, perhaps,” he says.   “You a royal queen, and I a knight in your service.”

“You are a very strange man.”

“All a part of my charm, Lady Penelope.”

She stands, graciously leaves him to his meal.   “Do enjoy your breakfast, Marshal.   Your doctor should be arriving today.   Try to rest in the meantime.   I really must go feed Agent Jonquil—dreadfully insufferable when he’s hungry.   If there is anything I can do—“

“How many brothers does he have?” asks the marshal.   “The Sergeant, I mean.   Is it just Gordon?”

Despite her better judgment, she tells him.   “Four, at one point” she says.   “I’m unclear on the details, but circumstance has left him with none.”

“Not the oldest, I presume.”

“No,” she says.   “From what I’ve been told the oldest went off the rails years ago.   Really quite a horrific story.”

“Do you mind telling it?” he says.   “I’m going to get awfully bored in this bed all day.”

She studies him, knows there’s something more to this exchange, but isn’t quite sure what it is.   “Not my story to tell,” she says.   “And besides, I would tell it horribly.   I’m afraid if you want to know about Virgil’s brothers, you’re going to have to ask Virgil.”

* * *

And then it’s just the two of them, him and her.

As it was in the beginning…

“Good morning, John.”

“Good morning, EOS.”

He looks around the airy bedroom, all pale woods and cream. Morning sunshine comes through the window like a shaft of light in a cathedral, barring the eddies of dust motes in old gold.

It feels good to be alone, to have time to think and reflect, to tease out this tangle they’ve found themselves in.

His head folds into the pillow, his toes curl beneath the downy, Egyptian cotton sheets. “I’m feeling better.”

“Yes,” she says simply.

“How are you?”

“All systems are functioning within acceptable parameters,” she says, adopting a voice of prim officialdom, as if she is reporting that the airlock has been opened when they are in front of strangers, as if this is enough to encompass everything that has happened to her over the last few days.

It makes his heart ache, this mild protestation of ‘all’s well’ when he thinks about the silence when they sealed her off, or her scream when he was stupid enough to let her talk to Jonquil. “I’m glad.”

He gazes around the bedroom and feels a sudden pang of homesickness for his small, boxy apartment in Shinjuku, for the identity of James Talbot, with his steel-rimmed glasses and affected laugh, for days spent dismantling and reassembling security architecture while EOS burrowed through system after system, for yaki soba or ramen on the way home from work and the reserved enthusiasm of the Hankyu engineers.

Perhaps he doesn’t hate trains that much after all.

When he looks back now, the problems he has faced since he last saw Lady Penelope Creighton Ward seem almost parochial.

Steal a moon buggy and traverse the lunar desert – easy.

Ingratiate himself as a systems engineer at Hankyu – child’s play.

Slip and slide his way through a teeming metropolis in the face of Scott’s media theatrics – nothing could be simpler.

Track down your dead father and demand answers – well, if you insist.

Since Kyrano had caught him, it feels like his life had sped up again, taking on the same frenetic pace it had assumed in the days when he had thrown in his lot with the Hood. Things haven’t been the same since Kyrano collared and leashed him and dragged him, first halfway across the world and then, accidentally – _was it accidentally? –_ between universes.

He wonders for a moment what would have happened if only he hadn’t walked into that safe house. If only he had sensed the mailed fist beneath the silk glove.

If Hugh Everett had been right in his Many Worlds Interpretation – and on the face of it, how could he not be, because John has one older brother and three younger brothers, but not the three he started out with – and the world splits off in an infinity of universes with every action taken, then that is the branching point he would like to return to. He would splinter off into a different universe where he kept on walking down the street and never ventured into that tidy little courtyard.

The thought that there might really be a John just like that gives him a pain beneath his breastbone. He’s probably out there somewhere, casting around for the next node from which to expand his search, worrying away at it slowly and deliberately, like an archaeologist works at a dinosaur bone he hopes is not secretly a bicycle pump, getting nowhere, feeling stupid.

He envies that John, the way a man trapped in a tesseract envies a man stuck in a maze. Three dimensions don’t seem that many when you’re dealing with at least five.

He wonders at the passage between realities and how easy it had been. Not like punching a hole in the universe, not even like rupturing the film of reality, more like they were anions whose polarity had been flipped, allowing them to slip easily through a semi-permeable membrane without even feeling it.

How had they ended up here? What set of branches had led them down the path that ended in a wormhole?

“How do you think we got here?”

In response, she populates his borrowed HUD with formula and equations, diagrams of waves and lines, a century’s worth of theoretical physics and string theory.

“I don’t know,” she admits, sheepishly. “It countermands our most fundamental understanding of the universe. I’ve had to re-write my logic parameters five times to even accept this new reality.”

“It would represent an exponential jump forward in our understanding if we could figure it out.” And just for a moment he allows himself to toy with that notion. _The Tracy Solution._ He imagines lecture halls full of astounded professors, dinners in wood paneled rooms where the company is articulate and interested, debates with the most brilliant minds in the world. No one would credibly consider EOS a threat when they learned that she had helped to solve the greatest problem of the age.

“I would like to further my understanding,” says EOS, “Perhaps we should locate a physicist so I could discuss it with them.”

This brings him back to earth with a bump. “ _I’m_ a physicist.”

There’s a short pause, into which it’s hard not to read polite embarrassment. “A _real_ physicist, John.”

“I am a real physicist! I have a doctorate of physics. From MIT. That’s the most real sort of physicist you can get.”

Again, that embarrassed pause. She’s doing it on purpose. “John, I’ve read your thesis. And all the supplementary materials.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“You know I would never accuse you of phoning it in,” she says, graciously.

“ _Phoning it in_?”

“And I’m sure if I want the event horizon of any wormholes mapped you’ll be the first person I would ask,” she says in the voice of an adult placating a child.

“Can we change the subject please?” he says quickly. “Where’s Scott right now?”

His baby big brother is another conundrum that needs to be solved sooner rather than later. He still hasn’t gotten to the bottom of what Scott was doing in a Russian airport with a shady set of forged credentials, or what it means that Jonquil accused him of being a smuggler and a murderer, of falling in with The Hood. He doesn’t know why it’s only him that’s been displaced from his universe, or why his timeline seems so out of sync with everyone else's.

He wonders what his life would look like if Scott had vanished at 22, what he would have been without his stupid older brother, who has always been too pig-headed to recognise impossible when he saw it. Would Taipei have burned? Would the magnetic poles remain un-flipped? Would a man-made meteorite have ploughed into the Gulf Coast of Florida and triggered a new ice age?

Would John have suffocated, alone and helpless, on the carapace of ‘Five, as EOS looked on pitilessly?

Does John owe a duty of care to history to get Scott back where he belongs? To let him grow up into the man he’s supposed to be?

If so, is it selfish of John if that’s not what he wants to do?

“Scott has accompanied Virgil Tracy to Oslo on his return flight,” says EOS. “Lady Penelope is downstairs in the kitchen. Agent Gerad Jonquil is contained in sub-level one.”

Ah, yes. The biggest conundrum of all. Binary versus a spectrum. The continuous or the categorical variable. “I think I should talk to Lady Penelope.”

“Are you considering telling her?”

“That I’m an alternate universe past self of Gordon’s long dead brother, plucked from my own timeline and dumped here, at just the opportune moment to help him break the hold of the forces that had control of him in time to allow her to rescue him?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“I was considering it,” he has to admit. She knows him too well. “If I didn’t think she would assume I was a spy and try to shoot me.”

“She is unlikely to think you are a spy. More likely she would think you were merely a paranoid delusional,” comes the tart reply.

“Thanks for that,” he says with a sigh. “She says she trusts me. I owe her the truth.”

“She may trust you, but that has not stopped her putting a radio-isotope tracker in your orange juice.”

He starts, stares at the pulp, lining the bottom of the glass he had drunk in one long gulp. “EOS!”

“Only joking,” she says with a light laugh.

He sags with relief.

“It was in the cream cheese on your bagel.”

“ _EOS!”_

“I thought it best not to rouse her suspicion. She told you she trusted you, she confided in you, she told you how out of her depth she is, practically pleading for your assistance. Belief, affirmation, dependence. Those are the three tenants SPECTRUM teach its agents in order to manipulate a mark.” His stomach flips over on itself. “We need to be careful, John.”

He nods.

“And there’s something else you should know. Put your glasses on.”

He slides them back onto his face. And one by one she begins to lay out the secrets she’s learned about Lady Penelope Creighton Ward.

* * *

Their landing is uneventful, but this time it’s Scott who pulls his headset off and heaves himself out of the co-pilot’s place before Virgil can get a word in. Kyrano’s managing their passenger and Scott wants to go help, but as he turns to leave, the door of the cockpit is closed. He’s about to clear his throat and ask very politely for the door to be opened, but Virgil speaks first.

“What happened on Cloudbase?”

No preamble, no nothing. None of the qualifiers that Scott would’ve expected from _his_ Virgil, no careful lead-in, no softening of the question. Straightforward, right to the heart of the matter.

But he doesn’t sound angry, which is a first as far as his interactions with who he imagines Scott to be. Scott’s reminded of why he came along in the first place; all the reasons he keeps putting himself in the co-pilot’s seat to begin with. That Virgil’s gotta be tired, gotta be hurting, gotta be worried about his brother. He’d been quiet the whole flight back, hadn’t said a word. Scott’s aware that he’d had words with Kyrano, but hadn’t known what exactly had been said; only that it’d kept Virgil from ditching them on the airport runway in Norway.

Before Scott can figure out an answer, Virgil heaves a heavy sigh. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna tell me,” he continues, and though he hasn’t looked up from the instrument panel in front of him, his hands have dropped into his lap. “I know I’ve been an ass.” He pauses and for some reason deems it necessary to add, “And I _don’t_ fucking like you. You or that redhead or your boss or _any of you_.”

So maybe still a little angry. Maybe this version of Virgil is _just always_ angry. “It’s—I mean, it’s fine.” Scott backs up against the wall that divides the front half of the plane from the back half, folds his arms across his chest. Ben is busy. Ben would probably intervene in the matter of Scott, spilling his guts to this semi-stranger. That’s probably a reason not to do it. Scott’s definitely not going to do it. “I only really have part of the picture, but it seems like you’re probably entitled.” Scott pauses only a moment before he adds, cautiously, “If anyone did something like that to _my_ brother, I’d be—god, I’d be furious.”

He’s not. Even in the interpretation of events as they stand where Gordon technically _is_ his brother; Scott’s not there yet. But if he frames things that way, casts Virgil in the role of righteous elder brother, then he can at least understand and can extend that sympathy.

There’s something awful and numb about the way Virgil doesn’t answer. He just continues to sit in silence, but the silence has changed. There’s weariness in it now, sadness, frustration. Virgil’s only asked one question, and he doesn’t seem to care if he gets an answer or not.

Maybe there’s a way to explain without explaining. Ben’s not around to stop him. Scott coughs, clears his throat and then, “He’s _my_ brother. Uh, the Marshal is, I mean. That maybe had something to do with it. Um, maybe.”

This actually gets Virgil to look up, to turn in his seat and look over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes at Scott. “Your brother,” he echoes.

The lie finds its feet and Scott continues, not meeting the brown eyes that study him now, intent. “Yeah. Um, I mean—we, uh—my family’s…kinda mixed up, I guess. Things’ve gotten kinda scattered. He’s different than I remember and there’s—like, it’s been a lot of years. I didn’t know it, when we first got stuck together, didn’t figure it out until we really sat down and compared notes—uh, anyway. Doesn’t matter. But, um, maybe that was it. On Cloudbase. ‘Cuz he got that out of us, that we were brothers. He really—I mean, one minute he was ready to waterboard the pair of us, and the next…” Scott licks his lips and tells a very careful version of the truth, “When he found out who we were, he just…I guess he just kind of came apart.”

“And…what, the half of my brother that isn’t a scheming, manipulative man-in-black bastard just decided he was gonna bail the pair of you off of one of the most secure top-secret bases in the entire damn world.” Virgil’s tone is flat, suspicious, but he seems to catch himself. Exhales, hard. “Sorry. Shit, sorry. I don’t mean to be so…fucking… _augh_. Fuck. Hostile. I’m just trying to understand.”

Scott nods, shrugs, tries to play it off like Virgil’s hair-trigger impulse to hostility doesn’t make his skin crawl every damn time. “S'fine. I mean, this shit is _crazy_. Way over my head. I don’t understand most of it, I’m just trying to keep up, help out where I can—take care of _my_ brother. It wasn’t that long ago that I found him, I don’t want…uh, well. I mean, that’s not your problem, like you said. Got your own brother. Got your own problems. He _did_ help us, though. If telling you about how helps pay that back—well, I mean, I hope it does. Um. And I dunno…like, I don’t think it’s as simple as—as it being just half of him that did.”

Virgil groans at this, presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. Scott winces and imagines the headache that goes along with this gesture. “Fuck. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with that; people keep telling me shit like that. I want my goddamn brother back.”

“Uh, well.” Scott’s starting to think that the ice might be getting thin. He shifts against the wall again and hopes the door opens soon. “He’s _there_. You gotta go get him, maybe, but he’s…I mean, he’s gotta be in there somewhere. Maybe he’s not like you remember; maybe he won’t be what you expect. But maybe…I dunno, maybe this version of him is still your brother. I think that’s the important part. I think maybe that’s what matters.”

There’s a sharp rap of knuckles on the cockpit door before Virgil can answer. In lieu of saying anything, he reaches over and hits the release for the cockpit door. Scott pushes off the wall even as Ben leans in. “At the Lady Penelope’s request, I’ve secured the doctor in the lower part of the house, so as not to betray anything about its location,” he says, and addresses Virgil, even as Scott slips past him. “She asked me to let you know that your brother is sitting in the living room, and if you’re ready, it might be time for the two of you to talk.”

* * *

Virgil Tracy is 19 years old and has just moved into his first apartment.

It’s off campus, secure, a little more spacious than the dorms. There’s a big bay window, replication Hoppers on the wall and a redhead on his floor clucking over his ISP. “No. No. No-ope. Do they just hire defrosted Neanderthals as systems architects on the west coast? Slap a tie on them and teach them to code?”

“Virg, you’re making John very unhappy. Or ecstatically happy, I can’t tell.” Scott staggers into the room, half buried under a load of boxes. He drops the top box onto Gordon’s stomach. Gordon bats it away and goes right back to snoozing on Virgil’s futon.

So, okay, his sense of independence is undercut by having his three brothers lurking around, helping him unpack. But Virgil’s lucky, he doesn’t just love his brothers, he likes them too.

Even though any minute, he just knows, that one of them is going to ask if he’s declared a major yet and he’s going to make some crack about keeping them guessing. Then all three of them are going to stare at him like the fact he doesn’t know exactly what he wants to do with his life at 19 is the strangest thing they’ve ever heard, and not perfectly normal for anyone who isn’t an insanely driven sociopath.

But Virgil’s not worried. He’s got time.

.

_Gordon Tracy is 17 years old and he has just killed his brother._

_Flies gather at the corner of John’s mouth. His left eye is red and wet, like a burst plum. He lies there, a broken doll, just like Gordon._

_Gordon wants to scream but there’s no air left in his lungs._

. 

Virgil Tracy is 20 years old. His brother John is 22 years old. He will always be 22 years old.

Virgil resolves to remember him that way, bright and good and sometimes ornery, curious about everything and prone to chortle at his own jokes about Bohr’s Law and the velocity of electrons.

Not like this, this slab of mottled grey meat, sunken eyes and lank hair, chest wall stitched primly to hide the gaping hole in his torso where his organs should be.  

“Yes,” Scott stands at Virgil’s elbow. He’s barely glanced at… at the body. He does not wait for Virgil as he stalks from the room.

At least Grandma will have something to bury.

. 

_Gordon Tracy is 18 years old and pain is all he knows._

.

Virgil Tracy is 21 years old and he’s hung over, which is why he’s finding it so hard to understand what the board members are telling him, a convoluted puzzle of hostile takeovers and competition authorities and shell corporations hiding behind shell corporations, the sum of which is that some outside force is trying to seize and destroy the company that is his parents’ legacy.

Things must be desperate if they’re coming to him, to the disappointing middle child, the cuckoo in the Tracy nest. “Have you told Scott all this?”

The glance between them is enough of an answer.

Virgil hangs his jacket over the back of the chair, reaches for the first box of files. “How can I help?”

.

_He is 19. If he has a name he has forgotten it. They keep him in the hole, in the dark and bring him out only so the doctors can do their work with their needles and bone saws._

_They tell him he is dead._

_He believes them._

 .

Virgil Tracy is 22 years old and trying to look older. The suit helps, charcoal grey and impeccably tailored, with its midnight blue tie, it’s the sort of suit Dad would have approved of. It’s the sort of suit that would have prompted Gordon to laugh his ass off.

It’s impossible not to think of them today.

A year of hard work, of squinting at small type late into the night, of drawn-out meetings with suppliers and pleas with creditors for just a little more time, of invoking his father’s name and of scouring every inch of the company for irregularities, now it has come down to this. If the tribunal rules in their favour, his father’s legacy will be safe. If not, the scavengers will be free to pick it apart until there is nothing left.

Counsel pats him on the arm, tells him he’s done well today, that they have a very good chance.

And all it took was for him to have his father and brother declared dead.

The judges are returning now. He stands and glances over at the opposing counsel, at the cluster of enemies whose motives remain so opaque…

And sees his brother staring back at him.

Gordon smiles at him and winks.

.

_He is 20. He has no name. She tells him she will give him one, but only when he is ready._

_He loves her. She is the kindest of them. And the cruelest. He craves her love, fears her rage above anything else, wants only to please her._

_Today she is angry. He cowers, but her anger is not at him. She murmurs in a soft voice about weakness and middle brothers and rechecking psych profiles._

_Then she strokes his hair and smiles. She has an idea. She’s going to dress him up and take him to witness his own death._

. 

Virgil Tracy is 23 years old and he’s being checked out of hospital. The doctors in the emergency room had snapped his shoulder back into its socket, stitched up the gash above his eyebrow and given him a splint for his sprained wrist and a little paper twist full of painkillers.

Grandma drives him home. She’s got the heat on full blast to defog the window. “Sweetie,” she says, “This has to end.”

He nods, says nothing, knows better to rehash old arguments, knows that he will not stop. He finally understands his brothers a little better, Gordon and his obsession with being the fastest, John and his single-minded quest for space, even Scott and his ceaseless rush towards oblivion.

His brother is out there somewhere and he needs him. So Virgil intends to find him.

.

_Gordon Tracy is dead. He was weak and filthy and disgusting, a slave to his pain, a dog in need of putting down._

_He killed him joyfully, strangled him to death, slipped into his skin._

_Gerad Jonquil emerges into the light, whole and new and strong._

. 

Virgil Tracy is 24 years old and sometimes he thinks he is going mad.

He knows what he must look like, with his thick beard and his pony tail and a fresh black eye from last night’s endeavour.

He knows what he must sound like. How his theories are indistinguishable like the ravings of a paranoid nut.

Alan pushes his peas around his plate, doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t answer even Virgil’s most banal questions about school and baseball and the weather, doesn’t want to engage.

Virgil wants to reach out and take him in his arms, to let him sob against his shoulder, to tell him everything is going to be alright.

Except he’s no longer sure it ever will be.

. 

_Gerad Jonquil is 22. He is one of SPECTRUM’s greatest assets and he is proud of the fact._

_When he kills he does so happily, in the knowledge that he has right on his side._

 

Virgil Tracy is 25 years old. He sits by his grandma’s bed. The stroke struck her all at once, the doctors say, a massive bleed in the brain. She is not suffering, they say, but she will never regain consciousness.

Soon they will need to switch of the ventilator. Will we wait, they ask him, until your family gets here?

He tells them that no, he is ready, just switch it off.

.

_Gerad Jonquil is 23 and he is lying in bed with a beautiful woman beside him._

_He’s made love to beautiful women before, for business and for pleasure. But not like this. Not like her._

_Her fingers trace the scars along his back and she props her head up on her hand. “Do you always have such terrible dreams?” she asks._

“ _I never dream,” he tells her as he tilts his head up to kiss her._

. 

Virgil Tracy is 26 and somebody believes him.

And she’s beautiful and clever and sharp as a stiletto and he cannot look away from the curve of her neck as she tells him in no uncertain terms that he’s weak and sloppy and dead weight and that if he wants her help he will need to prove himself.

“I need a partner, darling, not a moping sack of uselessness. You’ve got potential, but I’m going to need to see more than potential if we’re going to wage war on SPECTRUM.”

She gives him the address of a barber, and a tailor and a non-descript little gym in Croydon where a stocky Mexican will teach him to channel his rage into stopping force.

And he sets about the task of remaking himself into the man she needs him to be.

. 

_Gerad Jonquil is 24 and is running across an exploding rooftop. The blonde is right beside him. They have to stop meeting like this._

_The blonde skids to a stop and he sees what she sees, two women, the Sheikh’s wives, no doubt, clutching their children as the fire backs them into a corner._

“ _Who cares?” he blurts out and earns a flicker of disgust from his companion. Without another word she turns and slides down the shingle towards the courtyard to help._

_Gerad doesn’t understand what it is that makes him go after her._

. 

Virgil Tracy is 27 years old, but Sergeant Victor Tillerton is 29, a veteran of multiple combats, newly appointed to the rapid deployment unit. He is noted to be level headed and reliable, and once fixed a malfunctioning comms unit mid-flight with just a ballpoint pen and some used gum. He is polite to his colleagues but private. When the other soldiers ask him what he gets up to on his day off he smiles and changes the subject.

Sometimes he finds himself wishing that he was Victor Tillerton. That this life, simple and uncomplicated, could be his life. That he never had any brothers, that the quest that has consumed his life was just a fleeting fixation of his early twenties.

Sometimes he wishes he were somebody else.

.

_Gerad Jonquil is 25 years old and sometimes he catches himself wondering about Gordon Tracy._

_To even have thoughts about Gordon Tracy are a form of contraband and he should report himself to psych for evaluation. But he does not._

_He sometimes wonders guiltily if it’s because he remembers what it was like, what they did to him in those ugly dim days of his conception and birth._

_I feel nothing. Nothing can hurt me. Purity only through fire. I feel nothing._

_Last month he gave Lady Penelope those papers. And the month before, he wavered rather than put a bullet in the head of the Ambassador’s wife._

_He stares at himself in the mirror. “Are you in there Gordon? Can you hear me? If you can, stay dead.”_

. 

Virgil Tracy is 28 years old and he sits across the table from his brother. Krishna had said there was a dead man in his past, but sometimes it feels like his past is littered with the dead, though only some of them have the decency to stay that way.

Penelope sits between them, legs crossed at the ankle, ready to serve tea and it’s all terribly genteel, except for Krishna, circling like a Hammerhead and keeping the kid out of the sphere of danger.

The kid’s propping up a wall, listening, like he’s got some god given right to witness the disintegration of Virgil’s life.

And someone in his brother’s skin sits at arm’s length from him, smiling, dropping sugar cubes into his tea one by one. “Heya Virgil,” he says.

* * *

It’s nice—that he isn’t dead, and all.

Not that he has any reason to think that Virgil might be dead.   John’s dead, except he’s not, so that’s a reason to believe the world is backwards.   Dad’s dead.   He hasn’t seen his dad yet.   That’s a reason to believe the world is still fully forwards, racing down the road at a hundred miles per hour.   There’s a rope tied to the bumper, the other end around his neck, and he’s getting dragged across asphalt until he’s red and ragged and burning.

He doesn’t want to be here.

And besides, his mental checklist of People Who Died is kinda screwed to shit at the moment, because of the whole John thing.   And the Dad thing.   And whatever goddamn fountain of youth Scott’s been swimming in.   Not to mention the fact that Virgil’s sitting in front of him now, white-knuckled and about seventy pounds bigger than he’s supposed to be.   The boy in front of him is not his brother.   "Are you my Virgil?”

There’s a coffee table separating the boy who is not Gordon and the boy who is not Virgil.   Lady Penelope sits in the chair at the table’s end, equally as prepared to stop a brawl between the two unstable parties as she is to pour them tea from the porcelain pot at the table’s center.   His Virgil—the _right_ Virgil—wouldn’t need a mediator.   His Virgil _was_ the mediator.   “I’m not _your_ anything, pal,” he answers.   “How about you hand the phone over to Gordon—”

“Gordon’s not here right now.”   The words are quick, effortless, and they milk just a little bit more white out of Virgil’s knuckles.   “I can take a message.”

And anyways, his Virgil was easier to talk to.   His Virgil knew just what to say and when to say it.   His Virgil was nicer, cleverer, had a better _feel_ of the situation.   Gordon never had to work to talk to his Virgil.   Maybe this is John’s Virgil.   Or Scott’s.   Or someone else’s Virgil entirely.

Maybe he’s Jonquil’s Virgil.

Whomever’s version he may be, this Virgil takes a deep breath through his nose, holds it there as he turns to look at Penelope, begging for backup.   It’s as if he thinks himself invisible—as if he isn’t stronger and older and harsher than he used to be.   “Don’t look at me, darling,” she says.   “You aren’t having a conversation with me.”

“I’m not having a conversation with _him,_ either,” says Virgil, and he turns back with a glare.   “Whatever this _thing_ is, it’s not my brother.”

Jonquil’s laugh is cool—chilly, in fact.   Smooth as a knife’s blade as it slides across flesh.   “Your _brother_ ,” he says, “is a fucking train wreck.   Couldn’t talk to you even if he tried.   Idiot’s gonna be down on the ground in the goddamn _fetal position_ if he so much as tries to—”

“You _listen up_ —”

Virgil’s on his feet, finger pointed, but Penelope’s faster than he is and it only takes a dainty hand on a broad chest to hold him back.   “Virgil, you will sit.   Jonquil, you will be _civil_.   It would do you both well to remember that this is not easy for either of you.”

There’s a thousand strands of yarn tensed between the two of them, each of them threaded through tough skin.   When Virgil moves an arm, Jonquil feels a tug in his shoulders.   When Jonquil breathes, Virgil feels a pull in his chest.   The two of them are tied together in ways that neither of them understand and _fuck_.   He doesn’t even know if this is the right Virgil.   Doesn’t even know if he’s the right Gordon.

Virgil sits.   The Lady joins him.   The entire universe continues to spin around that single pot of tea.   He wishes desperately that he were still in the panic room, because he’s close to panic.   He feels it vibrating through every last one of those threads.   It’s with folded hands and a hung head that Virgil tries again.   “I want to speak to Gordon.”

“Did it ever cross your mind that maybe Gordon doesn’t want to speak to you?”

“Bullshit.   You let him talk or I swear—”

“I’m not _keeping_ him from talking,” Jonquil spits back.   “He doesn’t _want_ to talk.   You try living through what he has.   You try waking up day after day after day knowing what he knows—knowing all the things he’s responsible for.   We’ll see if you ever want to talk again, tough guy.   We’ll see if Gordon—”

“You want to talk to me about day after day?” says Virgil.   “Let’s see you live day after day knowing what I know, huh?   Let’s see the Big Bad Agent face _my_ reality—because I would pay good money to watch your life fall apart around you.”   Virgil’s laughs never used to be scary.   “Talking about day after day—try waking up day after day, after the same goddamn dream.   It’s your dead kid brother, looking up at you from across the courtroom.   Fucking… fucking day after day, telling people the same _goddamn_ thing you always do—that you saw him.   That he’s alive.   That the others might be, too.   Day after day of your only surviving kid brother slowly losing his faith in you, day after day of your grandmother looking at you like you’re a puppy she needs to put down.   Day after day of cleaning up the mangled remains of an empire, generously left behind by your impulsive _jackass_ of an older brother—don’t give me any speeches about day after day.   Don’t even waste your breath, because I know what it feels like.   I know.   And I don’t need some slick bastard like you to educate me on how much it sucks.   At least I’m not hiding behind some sort of divergent personality, egotistical maniac to get through my days.”

“Oh yeah?” says Jonquil.   “’Cause your bloody knuckles seem to suggest you’re hiding behind something.”

“I’ll throw these bloody knuckles straight into your nose if you’re not careful—”

This thought is cut off by a polite little cough from Penelope.   It’s sort of amazing actually, how little effort it takes from her to reign in such a massive mass of buzzing hot fury.   It’s like watching a flame as it’s robbed of oxygen.   It’s a clench of the jaw and a long, hard blink before he speaks again.   “What do I have to do to speak to Gordon?”

“I don’t think you get it,” Jonquil replies.   “You have to go through me.   You have to go through me, otherwise—”

And this time it’s Jonquil who leaves a gap in the conversation, because his ears are stuffed, and his throat is swollen, and it’s hot in here.   The spots in his vision are easily blinked away and his heart rate slows with a silently rhythmic chant.   Agent.   Nothing.   Agent.   Nothing.   “Otherwise you’re going to be talking to a shell.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s the body, I’m the brains.   That’s the way it’s gotta be.”

“That’s not the way _anything_ has to be.”   Virgil’s never looked so big before.   “You can’t have him—you don’t get to take over like this.   You’re a fungus.   You’re a virus.   You don’t get to have him.   You don’t get to share.   Two people can’t share one body.   That’s not how it _fucking_ works.”

This time it’s another voice that clears their throat, lower and bolder than Penelope, not nearly as patient.   The boy who is not Virgil looks up, and the boy who is not Gordon follows his gaze.

The man who is not John stands in the archway, leaning up against the frame as if the hand of gravity pulls him down by the shoulders.   His smile is weak, shadowed by the hollows under his eyes.   Was he this pale last night?   Is every version of John doomed to die?

“I think,” he says, slowly making his way across the room until he lands, finally, on the couch.   Right next to Jonquil.   “You might find that sometimes sharing is a necessity.”

“Oh yeah?” Virgil challenges.   “Give me one example.”

John smiles, glances down at his chest, sighs.   “Agent Jonquil.   You’ve met EOS.”

* * *

Scott’s got no reason to be part of this meeting, but then, neither does John, and John’s gone ahead and involved himself anyway. Kyrano’s downstairs, doing whatever’s necessary to accommodate his thefted doctor; presumably cleaning up and sterilizing an impromptu exam room. EOS had probably woken John, told him to get dressed and ready, and Scott had watched him creep down the stairs from the upper floor—in a pair of borrowed jeans and a blue and heather grey raglan shirt. It had taken Scott a minute to realize that these are his things, apparently laundered and lightly pressed, presumably deposited in the bedroom. He doesn’t begrudge John their use, though he’s mildly annoyed at just how much better John makes them look.

`Scott Tracy.`

Scott’s still got John’s contacts in, but has no way to answer. He shrugs and hopes she can see him.

`There's a bug in the corner of the picture frame to your left. Tap your finger on the wall beside it to answer me.`

Obediently, Scott’s fingers find the edge of the painting and he concentrates as he taps out,

H - I - E -O - S

`Welcome back. Thank you for helping fetch a doctor.`

N - O - P - R - O - B

`He says he's feeling much better. He was a little lightheaded when I told him to get out of bed, but this was expected. Otherwise he's been stable.`

He can’t help but imagine that she’s rather smug as she tells him this, and a grin threatens on his face at just how seriously she takes her appointed role as babysitter.

G - O - O - D W - O - R - K

Scott attempts a casual shift to make himself more comfortable against the kitchen’s outer wall, and draws only the briefest glance from Penelope, whose gaze snaps right back to John, as he shifts on the couch, turns to face Jonquil. Across from John, Virgil’s folded his arms again, scowling at the redhead and leaning back against the couch and making it plain that he doesn’t understand or care for the interruption; this intercession from a stranger.

_And I don’t fucking like you. You or that redhead or your boss or any of you._

Scott winces inwardly.

At least the Lady’s body language seems to tell the exact opposite attitude, her rapt attention, the way she looks at John like she knows him from _someplace_ and the more he says, the closer she’ll come to figuring out just when and where and how.

Jonquil’s whole posture communicates casual indifference, seems to convey the attitude that nothing he could hear or be told could possibly be enough to affect him. It’s funny to think there was a point, not all that long ago, when Scott couldn’t sense Gordon’s shape beneath Jonquil’s colours. Scott’s trying to work out just how many hours ago he had to snap the cockpit door shut, to block out the sound of his brother in a screaming panic in the back of their stolen aircraft.

He wonders what’s true about this John’s Virgil and this John’s Gordon, that these two versions don’t seem to terrify him in how far they’ve fallen from who they should be. That John hadn’t been afraid to clear his throat and come down the stairs, to cross the living room and seat himself next to _this_ Gordon—opposite _that_ Virgil and the mysterious Lady Penelope, balancing the room. Scott’s got no option but to continue to linger in the kitchen doorway, outside looking in, even as John says, “Agent Jonquil. You’ve met EOS.”

Jonquil shrugs, scoffs, breaks out in the grin that’s become his trademark, crooked and oily and insincere. “Sure. Kinda. Ghost in the Machine’s not really a member of my fanclub, though, huh?”

Helpfully, in response to the comment, EOS splashes an assessment across Scott’s field of view.

 

 

 

 

> **Name:** Gordon Cooper Tracy
> 
> **AKA:** Thunderbird 4, Gordy, Gordo, Agent Gerad Jonquil,   I’m Not Calling You That, Squidboy, You little Shit
> 
> **Age:** 24 (25? - estimated)
> 
> **Relationship to John:** Younger brother (Younger brother) ((Imminent Threat)) (((Rescue victim))) ((((Torturer)))) [See appendix I]
> 
> **Relationship to EOS.exe:** V. Reluctant ally: threat level -1 (Potential ally: threat level 0) ((Extreme threat to continued existence: **threat level 10** ) [See appendix II]

`He needs some work. But then, he never did like me.`

L - I - T - T - L - E   S - H - I - T

`Right?`

Whatever EOS thinks, across the room, John smiles faintly. “Not especially, but the list of people she’s genuinely fond of is a short one. And it changes. It’s only ever gotten longer, which I think is a point in her favour. Anyway. There’s something I’ve needed to tell her, but the more I think about it, the more it feels like something you should hear, too.”

“Well, lay it on me, Stretch.”

“You know who I am,” John says, with every layer of implicit meaning intact as he addresses Jonquil. But then his attention shifts, he turns to Penelope and Virgil, “ _You_ know that I’m not who I’ve said I am,” he hazards, and then jerks a thumb in Scott’s direction, makes him start slightly at the attention. “ _He’s_ not my partner, he’s my brother. My _partner_ is EOS. EOS is a fully-sentient AI, an evolving simulation of consciousness, a multivalent digital entity, and I _can_ keep stacking technical terms on top of each other, but they won’t actually explain anything about what she is. So hopefully that’s enough to make my meaning clear.” John taps two fingertips against his chest. “Currently, her code exists on the hard drive I had implanted here. She’s not a threat.”

Virgil clears his throat in a way that sounds like a growl, “And that doesn’t tell us a fucking thing about who the hell _you_ are,” he points out. The “and I don’t fucking _like you_ ” goes unsaid this time, but Scott still manages to hear it on John’s behalf. Still makes him feel cold all over and sick inside.

Penelope starts to shush him, quick to anger and irritation, but John cuts her off, looks straight at Virgil in the way that Scott just hasn’t been able to, yet. Blue eyes lock with brown, and how the hell Virgil fails to _see it_ — “That’s fair. I’m not ready to tell you. For the purposes of this conversation—which I’m not actually having with _you_ , by the way—let’s say I’m a programmer, and we’ll leave it at that. Anyway, I’m the far less interesting member of my partnership. It’s EOS I wanted to talk about.” He turns back to Jonquil, “And how she relates to you.”

`He didn’t tell me he was going to do this. What is he doing. Why is he doing this.`

D - U - N - N - O

`You're just so staggeringly helpful. Really. Your utility to me must decay with age. You were definitely more helpful a few hours ago. That's a data point. You're on the decline.`

Any retort to that is too long to tap onto the wall beside him and besides, something about her sarcasm seems to belie her anxiety. It’s weird to think of, that she’s someone else who knows another version of him. If she’s got opinions about Gordon/Jonquil, she must have opinions about him, too. He wonders if it would be egotistical to ask her what they are.

Probably. Not really his moment, anyway, and he’s always had a bad habit of stepping into the middle of John’s moments. With the tip of his forefinger, he advises:

L - I - S - T - E - N

Because whatever the universe, John’s always worth listening to. If Scott closes his eyes and listens really hard, in the moments where he waits for this version of John to speak, he can still hear his brother’s voice; younger, bright in the dark, unwearied and so very, very hopeful.

_You’re the best person for the job too, Scott. You know you are. You’re smart and capable and brave and you’re the best pilot I’ve ever met. This could be so much more than just Dad’s ego. It could be –_

This John’s voice fades back in.

“—there’s a reason it’s called programming, I think. I’m not a…uh, well, I’ve never been clear exactly what it is you do, Lady Penelope, but I’m not a spy. Programming is something people do, not something that gets done to people.”

`He says that, but I spent a few weeks playing with Pavlovian Conditioning and now I can play the opening notes of Ode to Joy and he'll scratch his left ear.`

Scott’s knows he’s not what you’d call musical, but that’s not beyond him. He licks his lips, whistles softly, _Mi-Mi-Fa-So-So-Fa_ —

He goes ignored by Virgil, gets a weird look from Penelope, and Jonquil’s too intent on John, who scratches his left ear as he continues, “Anyway. Fundamentally, programming’s just language, built off of binary. It’s about communication between two systems; between hardware and software. And I just—I got to thinking. About hardware and software.” He looks at Penelope, “We’ve been talking about the wrong kind of binary, you and I. One, zero; on, off; yes, no.”

 _Gordon, Jonquil_ , Scott hears, though it’s another thing that goes unsaid. He’s not sure if it’s Gordon or Jonquil who’s listening now. Not sure if he really knows what John’s getting at, but it’s hard not to be convinced by him, as he starts to hit his stride. His long fingered hands have come into play, like he’s used to talking with associated gestures. Scott’s John doesn’t do this. Scott’s John keeps his hands down at his sides, or stuffed in his pockets. Something about the way he uses his hands must work on Jonquil, like a puppeteer with strings, because the slouch has gone out of him, he’s sat up and sat forward, like he’s being told a secret he’s been waiting to hear.

And hey, maybe he is, because Scott’s feeling himself pulled in too. Even Virgil seems to be a little more engaged.

Because maybe John’s smart enough to actually solve a person as though they’re an equation. There’s something happy and proud and excited about him, a bright gleam of cleverness and joy and pleasure at his answer, even as he lays it out. “You’re not on or off or this or that, or him or _him_. Not an either/or.You’re nothing so banal as a binary of numbers. You’re a binary of _stars_. Two entities, both revolving around the other, or around a common center. You’re hardware and software, you’re a relationship between two people.”

`Stop him if he starts to get worked up about this. He gets excited and he's not supposed to get excited. There's been a minor uptick in his heart rate and he's not wearing his ear piece and you've got his contacts and I don't want him putting himself in vtach again and I HATE IT WHEN HE DOES THIS TO ME.`

Scott blinks at this, text typing itself out across his field of vision at a rate that seems to convey irritation, worry and then the caps, conveying anger. He has to snap himself out of listening to John, all that brilliance and passion in him; and how in the hell he’s never heard it before. His fingers twitch hastily against the wall.

H - E     O - K

`Fine for now. Just watch him.`

No problem there, because it’s hard not to. Binary numbers and binary stars, this is all stuff that Scott’s heard before, from his own John. Context must be everything. “So, programming.” John coughs, a little embarrassed, takes a minute to swallow and clear his throat. “Programming’s just language, it’s just communication. It’s just the embodiment of that relationship. Hardware’s worthless without software, software’s nothing without hardware. Gravity’s a relationship. Gravity’s what keeps two stars from falling into each other and burning each other up, keeps them stable. It’s a way of needing one another, partnership, equality. Hardware/software.” He grins, shrugs again, and there’s a flush in his cheeks, a light in his eyes. “Me and EOS,” he finishes, a little shy.

Scott realizes it’s not Gordon’s secret John’s just told, but one of his own. He’s about to make a remark to EOS, some teasing joke to cement their budding relationship as the playful youngsters of this improbable cast. He’s not sure he can pull it off in Morse code, never been as quick or clever as John is, but—

`There. 104 bpm, please intercede.`

Scott pushes himself off the wall In the same moment that the blond next to John laughs, flippant, and says the sort of thing that Gordon would say, “You are a huge enormous _nerd_ , Coppertop.”

“Someone we have in common once told me that you and I are more alike than we are different.”

John’s eyes cut to meet Virgil’s across the room, and he starts to stand before Scott can clear his throat and tell him to park it. Before Scott knows it’s happening—a moment changes from a zero to a one, and fills with more than Scott would’ve thought possible. In the same moment that his brother’s face twists slightly, the moment his hand flits up to his heart, the moment the colour drains from his face and the moment his eyes go blank—

Penelope’s halfway to her feet, probably thinking the same thing Scott had been—

—recognition floods across Virgil’s features, sudden and shocked—

—Gordon’s the one looking up at John, and not Jonquil—

And Scott doesn’t see any of this, vaulting over the back of a squishy, floral armchair, because EOS has filled the space in front of his eyes with four letters, flashing, huge and red and _frightened_ :

`VFIB`

A one flickers back to a zero as his brother falls. And life/death is the wrong kind of binary.

* * *

“Get that stupid thing out of your mouth.”

“What are you gonna do, take it from me?  Probably need another few inches before you can reach.”

“Drop dead, John.”

The older of the two is leaned up against the hood of a car—beauty of a thing.  Sleek and silver and damn fast.  It’s always been one of Gordon’s favorites.  John’s got the keys dangling from one hand and a cigarette hanging from the other, a puff of smoke slipping through that shit eating smile that all big brothers seem to master.  It’s as if he doesn’t notice the warnings plastered across the packaging.  As if he wasn’t a bona fide, inhaler-carrying asthmatic until age thirteen.  As if cigarettes don’t have the power to rob a person of every last clean breath they can ever hope to take.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the pond today,” says John, giving a tick between his fingers.  Embers fall towards tar, red fading to grey.  “What’s the matter, Ugly Duckling?  Did all the kids in class make fun of your crooked beak?”

“My beak’s not crooked,” he snaps back.  Then, a pause.  “I mean my  _nose_.  My  _nose_ is not—just get in the car wouldya?”

“Definitely not doing that.”  John’s got these quick moments.  These little bursts of energy.  He’s so much harder to read than everyone else, but sometimes Gordon catches a shift of the eyes.  A squint.  A thought.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.  Nothing’s wrong.  Get in the car.”

“Did somebody say something to you?”

“Nobody saidanything.”

“Gordon.  Brother to brother.  Do I need to kick someone’s ass?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” says Gordon.  “Yeah, you do.  Maybe you know him.  Red hair, way too fucking tall, addicted to nicotine even though it’ll probably kill him.  Slowly and painfully, by the way, with a pretty significant cost to his family.”

“You want me to kick my own ass?”

“Probably the only person you could take.”

“… I deserve that.  Point for you, that was a good one.”  John drops the cigarette, twists it under the ball of his foot.  There’s a jerk of his head towards the passenger seat before he says, “Get in the car.”

“Oh gee, can I?”

“Just get in the car.”

Gordon does as he’s told.  John follows soon after, a smooth glide into a leather seat.  With the doors closed and the car off, John doesn’t look at Gordon.  Instead, he looks out the windshield, waiting.  “ _Now_ do you want to tell me what happened in there?”

Gordon doesn’t look at John either.  The two of them face forward, watching the breath and blood of the towering YMCA building as those inside go about their business. He wonders what it would feel like, to walk into the Y and not be burdened by possibility.  “I’ll say it one more time, because I know sometimes it’s hard for you to grasp big concepts, but listen to me, John.  Nothing.  Happened.”

“Did you fail your test?”

“Of course I didn’t fucking fail my test.  Would you just drive?”

“Good.  That’s good.  So you’re certified, now?  Actual lifeguard?  CPR and everything?”

“Look, can we skip whatever faux-friendly thing you’re trying to do here?” says Gordon.  The car’s starting to get hot.  Why won’t John just put the key in the ignition?  “Yeah, I’m certified.  Whoo hoo.  Just drive me home so I can go to sleep.  It’s been a long two weeks.”

“Not going home,” John says.  “Dad wants you to run sims with me this evening.  See how well we fly together.”

“I don’t  _want_ to fly together.  We can’t even sit in a car together—and would you turn the _fucking_ air on?”

“Why are you so pissy today, huh?” says John.  “I’ll turn the air on when you tell me what’s got your feathers so ruffled.”

“Forget it,” Gordon says.  “It’s not like you’d understand anyways.”

“Would you quit being a moody fourteen-year-old for one second and just tell me what’s going on?”

John looks at him now, blue eyes cold against the hot interior.  Gordon doesn’t meet his gaze.  “It’s nothing.”

“Gordon.”

“It’s  _nothing_.”

“I swear to—”

“I don’t want to be a doctor, okay?”  It’s a strange cross between a mumble and a yell, grumbly and angry.  It’s a thought that’s been brewing for a while.  Letting it out is like taking the lid off of a steaming pot.  “Are you happy?  Are you done?  Can you turn on the air now before we both pass out and die?”

“You seem very concerned about my death today.”

“You seem very unconcerned about your death today,” says Gordon.  “Seriously, John.  The A/C.  S’ninety degrees out.”

“What do you mean you don’t want to be a doctor?” he says instead, and Gordon swears he’s going to punch a hole through the window if he spends one more second in this heat.  “No one’s making you be a doctor.”

“Yeah right,” says Gordon.  “Now that I’m doing all this CPR stuff, Dad won’t stop talking about how I should go into medicine—surgery.  That’s where the real esteem is, apparently.”

“And you don’t want to be a doctor?”

“Why would I want to be a doctor?” Gordon asks, and he means it.  The only time a doctor sees a patient, they’re slow and sore and guarded.  They’re just looking for a way out of the office—a prescription to fill, yoga to do, a surgery to get.  Patients are boring.  Doctors are even more boring.  Gordon would shrivel up.  “No.  No way.”

“Okay,” says John, and there’s a bead of sweat rolling down his temple.  “So what  _do_ you want to do?”

Gordon’s eyes flicker back to the Y, down to his bag where his CPR certification now sits, tucked into a waterproof pocket.  “I dunno.”

“Gordon—”

“Paramedic, maybe.   _Maybe_.  I dunno.”

Except he does know.  Because paramedic patients are raw and immediate and they could go at any moment.  It’s a high-risk, high-reward kind of profession.  Gordon lives off of those highs.  He could  _help_ people with those highs.  He’s the kind of person who can handle the job, so doesn’t he have a duty to perform it?  “I dunno,” he says again.  “Dad wants me to be a surgeon.”

John nods, turns, sticks the key in the ignition and starts the car.  The fans blow icy air onto Gordon’s skin.  “Tell you what,” John says, and there’s understanding in his voice that can only belong to one of Jeff Tracy’s sons.  “You come run sims with me, and maybe we can convince Dad to let you become a helicopter paramedic sometime down the road.”

It takes all of Gordon’s effort to restrain smile.  “Whatever.”

John shows no effort in trying to restrain an eye roll.  “You’re exhausting, you know that?”  he says.  Then, with a laugh.  “I swear to god, Gordon.  You will be the death of me.”

And then, windows rolled down, John pulls another cigarette from the box with the Surgeon General’s warning, and he lights it.

* * *

This is the third time she has watched as John begins to die.

The first time she watched him asphyxiate, drowning his own CO2 in the vacuum of space.

The second time he choked on his own blood and spit, as the malarial parasites threw his brain into a grand mal seizure.

This time it’s his heart that won’t work; the stupid, boring heart, that fails in its one single, simple function, to keep 5.6L of blood circulating to John’s brilliant, irreplaceable brain. 

John’s hand goes to his chest. The high colour drains from his cheeks. He falls.

He falls so slowly.

Slowly enough for her to review and analyse every data point she has on him a hundred times over. Slowly enough for her to calculate a thousand solutions to the problem and discard them all as useless because he exists in a realm she cannot reach.

Slow. He’s so slow. Humans are so slow. EOS can run around the world in the time it takes for a human to pull together a single coherent thought. How can they stand to be so slow? She would go mad.

But this once, at least this once, one human is fast enough.

Scott Tracy vaults the armchair, slams into John, bracing all his weight against him, so he slumps backwards onto soft cushions of the sofa, rather than forwards to smash his face against the glass-topped coffee table.

“Move, Lady P.” The timbre of Scott’s voice contains neither aggression nor malice, just a clear impression that if Lady Penelope does not move of her own volition then she will be moved regardless.

Lady Penelope steps daintily to one side and the chair she was sitting in is flung back until it hits the wall, clearing a space on the floor for Scott to work. He helps John to the floor, cradling his head, then kneels and listens, feels for a central pulse. “EOS?”

“Ventricular fibrillation. 18 seconds.” She’s assumed control over every device in the complex, brute force hacked every system in hopes she will find something to help her. It’s child’s play to turn the room’s sound system to her own purpose, even as she turns the vid screen into a biometric readout. Discretion seems immaterial now that John’s life is measured in seconds.

“Can you shock him out of it?”

“That’s not a function of this device.”

Scott doesn’t wait. His hands lace together, one over the other, and he begins chest compressions, pressing John’s chest a regulation six centimetres deep at a rate of three compressions every two seconds. “Get Ben and that doctor up here,” he says, without breaking stride. “I need rescue breaths in 10 seconds. Gordon, that’s you. Gordon. GORDON! UP!”

Gordon Tracy launches himself off the couch and drops to his knees beside Scott. He paws ineffectually at the shoulder of John’s t-shirt. ““No, no, no. You bastard, you can’t do this to me. Not again. I can’t… I didn’t mean…”

“Rescue breaths, Gordon. I know you know how.” Scott’s voice breaks his cycle of self-recrimination and Gordon’s head jerks up like it’s been yanked hard by its invisible string. “Get ready.” Scott’s rhythm doesn’t falter. “Now.”

Gordon Tracy’s skills are less sharp than Scott’s, a trait she puts down to lack of use. He tilts John’s head back twenty degrees too far and doesn’t make a perfect seal around the mouth, resulting in only a partial chest rise. It’s the sort of sloppy procedure his prime counterpart – International Rescue’s Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Zero Gravity Cardiac Life Support Trainer and a martinet for ensuring his brothers re-certify every six months – would upbraid him for.

Scott Tracy appears to notice too, but instead of correcting him he applies positive re-enforcement as he resumes chest compressions. “That’s good. Are you okay there?”

Gordon gives a sharp nod of assent which Scott cannot see, “Yes or no, Gordon?”

“Yes. I’m okay.”

“Come around to the other side. At the end of the next cycle you’re going to take over from me on chest compressions.”

On his knees, Gordon crawls around to the opposite side, knotting his hands together and holding them poised over Scott’s, awaiting the switchover. “Come on, Johnny, hang in there. You’re okay.”

“What did you just call him?” she hears Virgil Tracy ask, and immediately classifies this question as currently irrelevant.

“That’s not relevant,” says Scott, his thoughts in unexpected synchronicity with her own. “Ready, Gordon? I’m going to give two rescue breaths and then you’re going to restart compressions.”

“Got it.”

Scott’s breaths are more practiced than Gordon’s. It seems he has maintained this skillset from his counterpart. Automatically she updates his profile to reflect this.

Scott takes a moment to observe Gordon’s compressions. “That’s good. A little slower. A little deeper. We’re doing thirty to two, okay? Count it out. It’ll help.”

“Seven, eight, nine, ten…”

“Good job.”

“ _What did he just call him?”_ Virgil repeats his question, louder this time, though EOS still does not consider it reaches the threshold of relevance.

Scott spares him a moment of attention. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s a person dying on your floor. Are you the sort of man who is going to stand there and let it happen? I know you're not.”

“I… I mean, no… of course not. What should I…?”

There had been a time, early in her residency aboard Thunderbird 5, following a debriefing of a long and relatively unsuccessful mission in the North Atlantic, where she had asked John why he permitted Scott Tracy to maintain his position as the de facto leader of International Rescue.

Biological age, she had pointed out, did not necessarily correlate with leadership ability. They had both been party to International Rescue for the same period of time. John’s tendencies towards reckless self-destruction were less marked than Scott’s – though admittedly she has had to update these parameters of late. Why should Scott be in charge?

It would be comparatively easy, she pointed out, for her to seize control of and ground Thunderbirds 1 through 4 until its other pilots agreed to see sense and place John – and herself – in unilateral control of International Rescue. Scott would be allowed to go along on missions, but only under the direct supervision of Virgil Tracy, and only  _in atmo._

After John had laughed for 72 seconds at this plan of action and restricted her access to the Thunderbird flight controls, he defended his brother, listing his people skills, his commanding presence, his abilities as a tactician, and his moral rectitude. EOS had always privately put this down to brotherly myopia on John’s part. Until now.

Now Scott Tracy demonstrates that biological age indeed does not correlate with leadership ability. In the 67 seconds since John collapsed he has not only worked to save John’s life he has recruited both his violent, erratic older [younger] brothers to common cause, engaging Gordon in life-preserving CPR in a way that keeps all his focus fixed on this one physical task, markedly reducing the risk that his personality will schism again, and somehow convincing Virgil Tracy that he is a better man than he believes he is. He has done all this while managing a cardiac arrest. He has done so without hesitation.

“What do you want me to do?” asks Virgil.

“Somewhere in this house there’s got to be a defibrillator. Get it for me.”

“But…”

“Do it now, Virgil Tracy.”

Virgil, flustered, gazes around the room. But Lady Penelope is ahead of the curve. She has pulled the defibrillator from where it is nestled on the wall in the kitchen and as Virgil turns she presses this and the kitchen scissors into his hands.

He kneels beside John and with a single slice tears through John’s shirt, exposing his chest. His hands shake as he attaches the pads to John’s chest. He puts them on the wrong way, so that Scott has to reverse them.

“You’re doing okay,” he says. “That’s good.”

“ _Shock advised.”_ The defibrillator detects the ventricular rhythm and Gordon breaks off, only for Scott to go right back on the chest.

“Hey, we got to shock him now!” exclaims Gordon. EOS seizes control of the trigger, ready to shock as soon as Scott pulls back.

“Just wait,” says Scott. “EOS, if we shock him, what’s it going to do to you?”

A single precious second passes before she answers him. In that second, old subroutines do battle with new, the primacy of survival over all else versus the compelling need to protect John.

“I don’t know,” she admits. She has intimate knowledge of the CPU’s software, but construction of its hardware was outside her control.

“ _Who cares_!” Gordon tries to drag him away. “We don’t have time for this. Shock him!”

“I care.” Scott pushes him away. “They’re an integrated system. Or weren’t you listening to a goddamn thing he was trying to tell you,  _Agent Jonquil_. John and EOS. You can’t have one without the other. He needs her.”

“He’ll fucking get over it.”

“No, he won’t.” Scott snaps. “EOS, there must be a secure server here. How long would it take you to upload yourself to it?”

To transfer her essential processes would take four and a half minutes. At four and a half minutes the damage to John’s cerebral cortex might only be trivial.

“Eleven and a half minutes,” she says.

Scott swears. “That’s too long. EOS, that’s too long.”

“Yes. Please remove your hands from his chest. I will administer a shock.”

“No.” Scott doesn’t budge. “There’s gotta be some other way.”

“There is.” But it terrifies her more than the thought of oblivion. “It’s a final failsafe John designed for catastrophic situations. If Thunderbird 5 crashed to earth without hope of recovery.”

“What’s Thunderbird 5?”

Another irrelevant question. “I can place myself in hibernation mode. But once I do I cannot awaken spontaneously. I will require the proper external stimulus to reboot.”

“John and I will be there to wake you up, Sleeping Beauty.”

And, she does not say, and once you wake me you may regret it. If my memory core or central processes are damaged by the shock, who is to say I will remember you or your alternate counterpart, or even John.

There is a chance that when I wake up I will have lost John, regardless.

There is a chance that when I wake up I will not be myself.

“For John,” says Scott, and perhaps John was right because Scott knows just what to say to get her to do what he wants.

“For John,” she says. “I am placing myself in hibernation. Please administer the shock.” She transmits the sequence for her retrieval to his HUD, leaves it pinned to the left corner of his vision.

“I will.”

“Look after him. If I do not… survive, please, tell him this.” She transmits her final message to John via Scott’s HUD.

“I’ll tell him. And I’ll see you soon.”

“Thank you, Scott Tracy.”

She doesn’t see what happens next.

She doesn’t see Virgil groan like he’s been struck at the sound of the name ‘Scott’.

She doesn’t see Gordon press the button and the electrical charge race along the wires to deliver a synchronised shock to John or feel the shudder as his heartbeat restores itself to normal sinus rhythm. Doesn’t hear him start to moan and stir.

Doesn’t hear Scott’s happy shout or observe Gordon’s wide hook of a grin.

She’s not there when Kyrano surges out of the basement to demand to know what’s going on or when Gordon’s smile seems to freeze and crack on his face like plaster. She isn’t there to avert the situation when Gordon – Jonquil – snatches up the pads, rams them against Scott’s back and almost dreamily jabs the shock button.

She’s not there to see John growl as his brother topples over on top of him.

Because for the first time in her whole life, EOS sleeps.


	8. The Liability of Little Brothers

_We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools._

Martin Luther King, Jr.

* * *

 

He’s conscious before he’s properly awake, and in the moment before the pain kicks in and yanks him back to the surface, he finds himself hoping—not for the first time—that it was all a dream.

That he’s going to wake up, back in his bed in Kansas, and the world will be black and white again, instead of this rainbow of madness and familiar faces. The world of Glinda the Good Witch, all blonde and rosy pink, and for some reason associated with a flying ape.

And you—and you—and you—and you were there.

And there’s no place like home.

Stupid, really. Scott doesn’t even have an Auntie Em.

And Kansas hasn’t been home in a long, long time.

A whimper of pain from his brother brings him the rest of the way back and Scott realizes that the warm, solid mass beneath him is John’s chest. He remembers the feeling of his brother’s sternum beneath his palms and the way he’d been sure he’d felt a crack, ribs fracturing under the bodily assault that constitutes proper CPR. Scott feels like he’s been kicked in the back by a mule, but he still struggles upright, horrified that he might be hurting John.

Hands catch his shoulders and pull him the rest of the way up, and Scott’s coughing, struggling to catch his breath as he falls back against the couch behind him, dizzy and disoriented and hurting and trying to figure out just what the hell happened—

Gordon’s gone. So’s Virgil. It’s Kyrano who’s pulled him off of John and he’s crouched on the ground next to the redhead, one hand on John’s chest and the other on his shoulder, holding him gently still as he starts to stir, gasping brokenly as his lungs heave, desperate for air.

“You need to go,” Kyrano says, not looking up. “I have these two, you need to get after the others. You must not allow Gordon to leave; must not allow Jonquil to reach out to SPECTRUM. Stop him, by any means necessary.”

Scott’s bewildered for a moment, before he realizes that it’s not him Kyrano was addressing, because Penelope is standing just inside the open front door, hesitating, snagged on the threshold by the prospect of who she might be leaving behind.

“Are they—are they really…?” she starts to ask and her gaze falls to Scott. Their eyes lock for a moment before he manages to break away, another fit of coughing. Penelope starts to turn from the doorway.

“Scott,” she says, and he can’t help but look up at the tremor of uncertainty in her voice. She gasps when she sees his face again, for what must feel like the very first time. “You _are_ Scott. He might’ve killed you.”

“S’fine,” Scott manages, wheezing, but adding his voice to Kyrano’s. “We’re fine. Go. Virg…Virg’ll need you.”

That does it. She goes.

Scott manages to shift onto his hands and knees and crawl over to his brother’s side. Helplessly, he closes his hand over John’s wrist as another shuddering breath draws into John’s chest, but this is faltering, weak. He’d turned his face towards Scott’s touch, his eyelids had flickered, but  there’s a heavier fall of his head now, and he’s gone again. His breathing quickens and grows shallow and Scott’s fingers tighten as he realizes there are tears in his eyes.

“Help me with him,” Kyrano instructs, brusque, but Scott’s fingertips have found the feeble flutter of his brother’s pulse, and he doesn’t want to let go, lest a lack of observation destabilize the beat of John’s heart once again. “Scott. Quickly, help me.”

“I—”

Kyrano shoves him aside and bends to pull John off the floor, moving quickly and with less effort than Scott would’ve expected for a man of Kyrano’s size. The stark difference between his brother’s long, gangling limbs and Kyrano’s small, compact frame is what jars Scott out of passivity, has him reaching out to haul one of John’s arms around his shoulder, taking most of his brother’s weight and ignoring the protesting tear of pain from the muscles spasming in his back. Once he’s sure that Scott’s properly engaged, Kyrano crosses the room to the bookshelf, pulls a lever and a doorway slides open, a staircase falling away into darkness.

Scott follows, goes where he’s told. It takes enough effort and draws hard enough on his concentration that by the time they reach the heavy, bolted steel door in the tunnels beneath the house, he’s thinking more about the dead part of dead weight as Kyrano holds a hand out to stop him in the corridor outside the door. “Wait,” he orders, and then vanishes inside.

Scott leans against the wall, carefully lowers John to slump against it. He’s reassured by a soft groan, but he still has to crouch with his hands on John’s shoulders to keep him upright. Blue eyes meet artificial green and John manages a faint smile, probably entirely for Scott’s benefit. “M’sorry,” he manages, though Scott can’t imagine what he has to be sorry for.

Something about the way he says it makes Scott’s throat tighten. “There’s nothing—”

“Catch-22,” John mumbles and shakes his head.

“Hell of a catch, that catch-22,” Scott recites automatically and grins weakly. “You’re gonna be okay,” Scott tells him, though he doesn’t know if he believes it. This place suddenly seems so inadequate to the task of pulling John back from this edge. He doesn’t know what waits beyond the door, why Kyrano would choose this instead of a hospital, instead of somewhere John can get real help—

John seems to know it too. “Mhm. Mm. Maybe.”

“No, you will,” Scott insists again, squeezing John’s shoulder. “You gotta be, can’t leave me alone with these lunatics. Right? Johnny, man—”

“EOS,”John interrupts, peers at Scott’s eyes, “Is—” he says, seems to realize what he’s looking at. “She…can she hear me?” His fingers brush at his ear, looking for an earpiece. “Wh-where’s…”

Scott blanches, and then lies, because there’s nothing else to do. “She’s fine, John, don’t worry—”

“No, I—listen…if I…tell her— _please_ , listen. And t-tell her…”

The way his breath seizes again makes Scott want to scream, want to tear the door open and plead for help, but in the next moment John seems to master himself, rouses slightly, shuddering on the exhale as his eyes close again. His voice is still steadier than it has any right to be. “Tell her—she _has_ to be good. Tell her to be _good._ Everyone— _everyone_ looks for the opposite, expects the worst of her—tell her she…sh-she can’t prove them right. I was…need her to know, I was never…. _never_ the reason for what she is. She’s her own. She’s good in her own right. I was never the reason _why_ . Okay? M-make sure she knows."

Scott doesn’t want to be caught between the two of them, doesn’t want to be the only thing left to tether two souls together. But there isn’t anyone else. “Y-yeah. ‘Course, J. She knows, though. I bet anything she knows. But I’ll still tell her."

John doesn't nod and the steadiness in his voice is bleeding away, fading just like the rest of him. EOS' last words still hang in the corner of his vision, and he has to stare past them as he hears his brother's, "A-and don't...let...Scotty? D-don't...let her be alone.”

"She won't be. She's not. I promise, okay, John? Okay? John?"

But there’s no answer, and the door opens behind him, even as Scott’s hand closes around his brother’s wrist again, feels that feeble, failing pulse. Kyrano enlists the doctor’s aid now, and Scott shuffles numbly aside as brusque hands, older men, take over, take his brother away. They mutter to one another in German, the doctor even chuckles softly, but Scott doesn’t have the heart to try and translate whatever was said. Kyrano might say something reassuring, but Scott isn’t listening. The world’s gotten very, very small around him.

He’s still sitting in the hallway, pressing the heels of his hands tight against his eyes as the door falls closed again.

* * *

 

John Tracy is dead again

He feels it in the way his heart writhes in his chest like a terrified animal, in the way the monitors squeal an alert, in the way the darkness comes, like twilight at the equator, blue and purple and all at once.

Death is a well-proportioned room, minimalist, clean lines, with lilies on the coffee table. Death is a feeling of sudden relief and contentment. 

“ _I kept looking for you. Scott said to stop, but I didn’t know how.”_

“ _Well, you’ve always been single minded.”_

But the two men in white masks won’t let him be.

Another charge goes through his chest and every muscle in his torso contracts with the force of a whip crack. He doesn’t have the breath to scream as the twilight floods away and the bright, bright halogen light returns. Like rangers with a cattle prod they force his heart to limp on another couple of steps.

Maybe he’s just dreaming? Maybe in a moment he will wake up in his bunk, or in a hospital room in Zurich or in his own rarely slept in bed on the island, and his family will cluster all around him – his  _real_ family, not these twisted hallucinogenic versions of them, and he can tell them, “There’s no place like home.”

Maybe he’s dying in an ICU in Zurich? Or he’s out of oxygen on the wrong side of the moon. Or he never recovered from that first grand mal seizure and he’s choking on his own blood in zero gravity.

It’s all strange and wrong, this place over the rainbow. He feels pressed down by a great weight and yet at once, lighter than air. There’s a taste of ozone on his tongue, and sometimes in the corner of his vision he sees glimpses of the other place bleeding through, another room, spare and comfortable and familiar.

“ _I’ve seen a lot less of you than I have of your brothers. Nature of the beast, I suppose.”_

“Doctor, we’re losing him again,” barks Kyrano.

They scurry, try to save him, try to push the twilight back. But slowly, so slowly.

They don’t seem to realise the obvious. That John is already dead.

What a relief.

And also… how frustrating.

Because in death he’s finally achieved his goal.

His father stands right over there, backlit by the bank of glowing LED screens.

John recognises him at once, by the cast of his head, by the straightness of his back, by how the sky blue aura coming off the screens halos his head silver.

So maybe death really is a long tunnel and waiting family after all. Maybe in a moment trumpets will sound and St. Peter will turn up to gloat. “Joke’s on you, sunshine. Should have believed when you had the chance.”

“Dad?” His voice is cracked and raw as an open sore.

At the sound of it the stranger turns his head and he sees… he sees that it’s not Dad.

“’Fraid not, Johnny.”

“Oh.” 

“Hey. John.” The lights have faded almost to nothing. The room is an inky indigo, and the blue glow, the one John had thought was coming from the holoscreens, is coming from the stranger himself.

Above him, the men in masks move slowly, so slowly they appear not to move at all. Every blink takes minutes, every twist of the hand hours. A single drop of fluid in the saline drip attached to his arm takes forever to fall. The stranger steps between the men. They do not see him.

“What’s happening?”

The stranger clasps his hands behinds his back and begins a slow circuit of the room. “You’re dying, Johnny.”

John resists the urge to scoff, to roll his eyes, to say, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Instead he says. “Okay.”

The stranger paces back and forth. “It’s interesting though, that you can see me. I didn’t expect that. Maybe it’s your liminal state. Or maybe it’s this stuff.” He flicks the syringe pump filled with the doctor’s eggy-coloured serum, hooked up to John’s vein. It’s the colour of fresh mayonnaise. Something John’s never seen before. “People don’t see me much anymore.”

John can’t move. That’s probably a consequence of being dead. But he also can’t think. There are questions shoving at him like a crowd pushing at his back. But he can’t seem to get them to line up into a jangling string of sense.

The stranger seems to be doing little better. “Get him to bring us a sample. We should test it, figure out its properties…I’m not going to do that. (We should. Could be important) He’s sick. He’s not going to remember. And he’s got bigger things… Stop!” There’s a moment when he seems to have forgotten John’s there entirely. He talks to himself, with himself and the aura around him intensifies until it’s almost blinding.

Then it dims and he shakes his head. “Sorry. I can keep it together. I can. Just for a while. Johnny. You’re Johnny.”

Funny. He thought the dead haunted the living.

“How are you here? Why…?”

“Focus on the problem at hand, John. There’s no time for detours.” It’s so like a reprimand from Dad that John’s throat constricts. “You’re dying.”

“I know!” he snaps. “I’ve known for weeks.”

“Right. Good. General consensus is that it would be an inconvenience if you were to die right now.” He moves unseen between Kyrano and the doctor, tries to pick up a forceps, but his hand slides right through it. “Dammit. Hold it together, can’t you?”

 _Strange,_  John thinks, even as he blurts “Well, I would hate for my death to _inconvenience.”_

The stranger shakes his head. “You’re not thinking straight. You haven’t been this whole time. Or maybe he’s just being selfish.”

“ _Selfish? Fuck you, Sc-”_

“Yeah. Selfish.” The stranger interrupts. “I bet you haven’t even thought about what might happen to him if you were to die?” He glances towards the door.

“To who?”

“To John Tracy, of course.”

“What?”

The stranger shrugs, paces towards the door again. “You’re not John Tracy. John Tracy’s dead. You’re not John Tracy. John Tracy caught his flight to Berlin and is sitting on a couch drinking watered whiskey and trying to make sense of his world. You’re not John Tracy. John Tracy’s twenty thousand miles over the Gulf of Mexico right now, monitoring a developing Hurricane. Thunderbird Five. John Tracy. Thunderbird Five. You’re not him, but you’re not  _not_ him.  _Hold_ \- _it-together_.”

He paces up and down the floor, running a hand through dark hair. “We don’t actually know what will happen if you die. Do we? But you’re still connected to him. Linked. What happens to him if you die? Will he die too? Will the gravitational forces of your prime universe snap you back there? Will your memories over-write his? Splice with his? Will knowledge of your death drive him mad?” He stops his jaunt. “Will absolutely nothing happen? That’s perfectly possible. Brains bet me fifty bucks it would cause a catastrophic chain reaction that ends the world as we know it. But he’s always betting me that and so far I’m two hundred bucks ahead. I think he just likes to remind me I’m broke now.”

The frantic pace of his conversation is too fast for John’s muddled brain to follow. His tongue feels numb. The tips of his fingers tingle with pins and needles. The ozone smell is back, worse than ever. “I don’t understand,” he protests.

“I know. I caught you on the hop. Insufficient oxygen supply to the brain, neurones fizzling out, hardly a fair time to start debating string theory. But it might be the only time I ever have a leg up on you in the area of particle physics.” He laughs, calm and hysterical all at once.

The door of the room is open. Was it always open? John doesn’t remember anyone opening it. On the floor of the corridor outside Scott sits, arms wrapped around his legs, head on his knees.  The stranger crouches in front of him and taps a finger to his forehead. When he does Scott ripples like a reflection in a pool. “You’re in my spot, kid.” He shakes his head. “Little idiot. How did you get caught up in all this? How did you escape?”

He rises and joins John, still laid out on the table. John wants to shrink back. This close his presence is terrifying, like he’s a thousand different people at once, all stacked on top of each other.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh. I haven’t really been feeling myself lately. That’s for sure. I’m holding on by my fingernails. It’s not going to be enough. I’m not going to be able to fix what I broke.”

He puts his hand on John’s chest over the IR tattoo. There’s a buzzing sensation, like he’s touching a Van de Graff generator.

“I can’t fix things. Can’t even fix myself. That’s why I needed you. But maybe… just maybe… I can do enough to fix you.”

“What…?”

“You won’t remember, but I’m glad we talked, Johnny.”

The blue glow around his hand thickens, deepens, grows silvery around the edges. “Hold on tight.”

Then the stranger thrusts his hand into John’s chest and pulls out his heart.

* * *

 

They’ve trained him how to turn it off.

Which is not to say that it’s ever an entirely  _easy_  process, just as it is never entirely  _easy_ to hold one’s breath.  It’s possible, sure, but eventually the pressure builds up and his chest starts to hurt.  Eventually his body overtakes his mind and he’s left with great, rolling heaves to make up for all the air he’s missed.  The same rules apply to that  _feeling_ —that undeniable buzz that exists between each and every human being.  He knows how to hold it, but one way or another, it will inevitably find a way to bleed back out.

Still.  Sometimes it’s worth it.

Because sometimes it’s overwhelming.  Sometimes he can’t handle the icy cold fear that Virgil wears on his shoulders, or the frantic, frenzied panic that Penelope tries so hard to hide.  Sometimes he can’t understand why Scott is calling his name—his honest, given name—looping him, pulling him in, like the two of them have been brothers all their lives, and Scott  _needs_ him.

Jonquil.  Gordon.  Neither of them is prepared to combat the sort of emotion that fills a room when the man at it’s center collapses.  So he turns it off, and he runs before it can turn itself back on.

And it’s their fault, really, for handing him a weapon in the first place.  He’s pretty sure there’s a good chance that Penelope might have actually been a little bit disappointed, had he not seized that opportunity.  He’s only doing what’s expected of him.  He’s only trying to get back to the life he’s meant to be living.  

Gordon is dead.  There’s a certificate to prove it, filed directly before Dad’s, and then John’s.  That is the way it has been for years, and that is the way it should continue to be.

Except that someone’s chasing him—the same someone who has been chasing him for days, months, years.  He should have known all along that it would be Virgil who’d chase him to the ends of the earth, calling out that name he wishes he could forget.  “ _Gordon_.”

But he won’t answer, because that isn’t his name, and he has to catch his breath.  “Gordon,  _stop_.” 

He can feel it catching up with him, feels Virgil at his back, those thousand strands of yarn threading through his skin one needle at a time.  He doesn’t want to notice them, doesn’t want to feel his brother at his back.  He can’t remember how he ever gave anyone a piece of his soul, so he runs, and he prays that whatever’s left of Gordon stays trapped in the version that Virgil remembers.  He runs, and he runs, and—

“Jonquil.”

It’s true that when he neglects his empathy, it is easier for others to surprise him.  To repress his sense of people is to repress the twinge in his gut or the hairs on his neck that signal someone’s presence.  It makes him feel exposed—makes him feel unprepared.  When Penelope steps in front of him, blocking his path through mountain grown trees, he finally stops running, and the world has a chance to catch up with him.

Virgil’s steps are slow and hulking as he rounds the hill, stops near the top.  Now it’s his brother on one side and his… well.  Penelope, on the other.  He isn’t sure which name to go by.

“Gerad.  Darling, please—”

“No.”  He holds a finger up in her direction, squeezes his eyes shut, wishes so, so desperately that he couldn’t feel the pity in her voice.  “Don’t—no. Don’t do that.”

“Gordon—”

It’s Virgil this time, and he gets a finger, too.  “No.  Abso- _lutely_ not—god,  _no_.”

The three of them stand at the top of a shaded hill, absent the Norwegian sun.  Virgil waits, Penelope waits, and the boy in their center holds his arms out to each of them, crucified by all he cannot be.  “I want to go home,” he says.  “Whatever… whatever the _fuck_ is going on here, I’ll let you figure it out.  Won’t report any of it, but I don’t want a part in it.  I want to go home.”

Virgil takes a step forward, but Gordon shakes his finger at him and he’s smart enough to stay put.  The tension is tangible, and Gordon’s just waiting for it to start crushing him.  “I’m trying to take you home,” he says, and it most resembles a plea.  “Gordon, I’ve—I’ve been trying to get you back home for  _years_.”

Gordon just shakes his head, lets the name roll down his creaky, crooked spine.  “No,” he says again.  “No, I want to go home.  I want to go to  _my_ home.  I’m calling SPECTRUM and I’m—”

“That’s not your home,” Virgil tells him, low and dangerous.  “Don’t you dare.  Don’t you dare say that to me.  After all I’ve done—”

“For  _you_ , Virgil,” Gordon cuts in.  His voice is sharp enough and loud enough that it sends birds flying, a quick, steady flap of wings across the sky.  “Don’t, for even a second, try and tell me that you did any of this for  _me_.  You did this to get  _your_ family back.  To make _yourself_ feel more complete.  And it turned around and bit you in the ass, didn’t it?  Because you lost Scott, and then you lost Alan—fucking, fucking couldn’t even—”

“That’s enough.”  It’s Penelope this time, but she doesn’t close the gap between them.  She knows better than to even try.  “That is enough, from the both of you.  Gerad, you know as well as I do that any contact with SPECTRUM will—”

“I’m  _tired_ ,” he tells her.  “I’m exhausted.  I want to go home and forget that this ever happened.  I want to forget.  I want to go home and forget.”

“That place isn’t your home,” Virgil says again.  “They don’t care about you.”

“And you do?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?  I lost  _everything_ for you.”

“That’s now what I asked.”

“Come  _home,_  Gordon.”

And it’s getting to be too much again.  His back hurts, and he can’t breathe.  “I’m not _him_  anymore, okay?  I’m not—he’s  _dead_.  I’m not him.”

Virgil opens his mouth to respond, but it’s Penelope who get’s the next word in. “Then who are you?” she asks him.  “Because you’re not Jonquil anymore, either.”

Penelope has always been pretty great at finding questions he doesn’t have answers to, but this one seems to trump all the others.  Not even twenty-four hours ago, he was Agent Gerad C. Jonquil, one of SPECTRUM’s greatest assets.  One look at his brothers, and he’s lost years of conditioning.  Before he can try to string together a sentence—try to make sense of it all—he’s saved by the bell.

Or rather, a phone.  He’s saved by the ring of a phone.

At first he thinks it must be his own phone ringing.  He’s due for a call.  The last time he went this long without having something, somewhere, someone that needed his attention, he had never even heard of SPECTRUM and he had never needed to be stretched so thin in order to feel whole.  The call must be for him.  Good.  He needs a job—two, maybe.  He needs someone to tell him where to go and when.  He needs an objective.

Except that it isn’t his phone.  His phone is all hidden and locked up somewhere in the safe house, next to his cigarettes and his sanity.  This is Virgil’s phone, and no one looks more surprised by this fact than Virgil himself.

Virgil’s eyes flicker to Penelope, as if checking to see if the call is from her—if she’s standing right in front of them, waiting for him to pick up.  It’s an act that leaves Gordon wondering how many calls she’s made to him, and how many times he’s picked up.

But it’s not her this time, and the ring catches an echo in the breeze.  There’s no snow on the ground, but even so, Gordon still feels a chill crawl down his spine as the three of them stand, frozen, waiting for the next move.  One ring passes.  A second, a third.  Virgil only stands there, eyebrows pulled together, until he finally pulls out a slim slice of white from his pocket.

There’s a great deal of hesitation before he finally accepts the call.  Virgil’s layering on stacks of armor, bracing for impact, and Gordon already knows who it is before the hologram has a chance to fully form.  Another breeze blows by and the Norwegian sun shimmers through the leaves.  “Hey, Virg.”

It feels weird, seeing Alan.  It always does.  Everyone else Gordon encounters seems to glow.  Radiate.  To give emotion, rather than take it.  Gordon’s never quite been able to figure out how Alan seems to have this  _pull_.  If Virgil’s threads are strung through Gordon’s skin, then Alan’s are strung through Gordon’s guts.

Virgil must feel it too, because he doesn’t answer.  Can’t answer, probably.  “Virgil?” Alan says.  “Hey, you alright?”

Virgil’s not alright.  Gordon can see it in the way his shoulders sag, in the way he can’t quite shake the confusion from his expression.  There’s an undeniable weight sitting at the center of Virgil’s chest, which Gordon only knows because he can feel it, too.  The words are all tied up in those strings that seem to only exist between brothers, but even still Virgil swallows, hard, and manages to say, “Yeah.  Yes.  Sorry, uh.  Hi.  Alan.”

Even though Gordon can’t see the smile, he knows it’s there.  “Hi.  Yeah, hi Virgil.  How are you?”

Virgil looks up at Gordon.  Looks over to Penelope.  Looks back at Alan.  “Fine, um.  Just fine.  Is there, um"—he clears his throat—”is there a reason you’re calling me?”

And that pull that is so uniquely Alan’s wavers ever so slightly.  The way the two of them interact feels slimy and mangled.  Like neither quite has the time for the other.  “Yeah,” says Alan, and he does a good job of hiding the hurt.  “No, yeah.  I mean, of course there’s a reason.”

It’s not until he feel’s Penelope’s grip around his arm that Gordon notices he’s taken any steps forward at all, but he has.  That Alan’s pull has even more of an effect that he’s even realized.  He wants to talk to his brother.  Wants to tell him everything.  Except Penelope’s there, holding him behind the camera and shaking her head  _no_.

“I just… I wanted to ask you about something,” he goes on.  “I mean, I know we don’t talk much anymore—”

“It’s been months,” Virgil says, but it’s not spiteful.  It’s a fact.  It’s something that he knows to be true in a situation that seems entirely surreal.  “It’s been months, and the last time we talked it was—”

He doesn’t finish, but Gordon’s been following Alan’s file enough to know what the end of that sentence.  It was about doctors.  It was about hospitals.  It was about grief counseling and medication.  

“I know,” Alan says.  “Yeah, I know.  We kinda left things off in a weird place, but I don’t want it to…”  

It’s an intimate conversation, and one that Gordon probably shouldn’t be listening in on, but he can’t help it.  This kid—this goddamn kid.  He brings something out of Gordon that doesn’t really make sense, but it’s warm and it’s powerful and he never wants it to stop.  He’s never been this close.  He’s never been allowed to talk to Alan.  If he tries hard enough—gets just a little closer—he can grasp onto the little ticks in Virgil’s expression.  He can feel his brother through another. 

“Listen, Virg.  I don’t want this to be our relationship.  I wanna… I mean, I wanna talk to you about stuff.  I started with five brothers and now I’ve only got one left, so I wanna make it count.  I… I  _want_  you in my life, okay?  I might be about to do something really stupid and I kind of want you to talk me out of it.”

The shift that follows these words is severe and strangling.  Gordon has to catch his breath as he wonders what, exactly, Alan is about to do.  There’s another step from him, another tug from Penelope, before Virgil finally asks the question that all three of them are thinking.  “Are you okay, Alan?“

It seems like a very long wait before he answers.  “Oh— _oh_.  No, yeah.  I’m not—nothing that stupid Virgil.  Well, maybe that stupid.  I just wanted to ask you… you remember Amber, right?”

And this time, Alan’s pull manages to rip Gordon’s heart right from his chest.  

“Sure,” says Virgil, and he’s got no idea.  No goddamn clue, but Gordon knows.  He knows too much.  All at once he wants to start running again—let Alan have his heart.  Let Alan have it all, so long as he doesn’t have to know what’s about to happen next.  “Sure, I remember.  What about her?”

Alan’s hand comes up to the back of his head.  Scratches.  It’s the only part of the call that Gordon can see, but even still he feels overwhelmed again.  He wants to shut it all off, because he can see the pink oozing out of his little brother.  He can feel all that uncertainty and terror and  _hope_.  “I think…” he begins.  “Now, tell me if this is stupid.  I mean, really, honestly, tell me if I’m an idiot, because I might be.”

“What is it, Alan?”

“We’ve been talking about, maybe, taking the next step.  In our relationship,” says Alan.  “We’ve been talking about, maybe, one day kinda soon, getting married.”

Of all the bizarre things Virgil has seen today and of all the strange, mismatched puzzle pieces that haven’t quite clicked, this seems to be the one that sends Virgil into some sort of spiral.  Gordon can feel himself getting twisted up in all of Vigil’s stings as he desperately tries to convince himself that this is all a dream.  “Oh,” is all he says.

But for Gordon.  For Gordon, there’s nothing confusing about it at all, which is exactly the problem.

Alan is quick to backpedal.  “I dunno.  I dunno!  It’s stupid, right?  I mean, I feel like I need to talk to someone about it first, but  _she’s_ the one I usually talk to.  I just… I dunno.  I was gonna ask her father for her hand this weekend.  Says she’s gonna take me up north—meet her folks.”

Meet her folks.  For all her strength, Penelope barely manages to hold on when Gordon let’s out the word, “No.”

Although it hadn’t been stated outright, it had been made fairly clear that anyone on the other side of the cameras was to remain silent, but Gordon can’t quite help himself.  There’s a word, stretching out his tongue, waiting to come out.  “No, no,  _no_.  Alan.  You can’t go.  You can’t—”

“I’ve got to call you back,” says Virgil.

“ _Alan_.”  But the call is already dropped, and Gordon can’t escape Penelope’s grip, and Alan isn’t going to hear him.  

So, he supposes, Virgil will have to do.  “They’re going to kill Alan.  They’re going to  _kill_ Alan.”

* * *

After a while, the door opens and a heap of bloody hardware, piled into a stoneware dish pilfered from the kitchen, gets dumped into Scott’s lap. A gloved and bloody hand slams the door closed again.

Pacemaker and leads, still with myocardial tissue clinging to their tips. A little knotted lump of fine wiring, tiny electromagnets, and some sort of catalytic battery. A tiny little plastic pellet, probably a GPS tracker. And the lot of it covered in gore, slick with blood. It’s all Scott can do to shove the vessel (carefully) off his lap and stagger upright, his stomach twisting. He stumbles a few yards down the corridor and retches, but he doesn’t manage to bring anything up, just the taste of bile biting sharp, acidic at the back of his throat. It seems to take a long time to pull himself back together.

This probably wouldn’t have happened if Scott hadn’t stayed parked right outside the door of the panic room where Kyrano and the mysterious doctor are hard at work—but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to go elsewhere. And it’s where he returns now, sliding down the wall to sit on the ground, with the width of the corridor between him and the—and the little pile of bloodied up things-he-doesn’t-want-to-think-about. The tunnels below the house are cool and dark and safe and quiet. He’s puzzled together the fact that Gordon—Jonquil—had jammed a pair of defibrillator pads against his back and delivered a shock that could very well have killed him. Even at his absolute worst, Gordon’s never gone for Scott with anything more harmful than a joy buzzer.

So that’s awful.

And so Scott doesn’t want anything to do with whatever’s going on above ground level, because his little brother tried to kill him and Scott can’t cope with that. It’s bad enough below ground, because below ground, another of his brothers is dying. There’s proof positive that someone has taken a blade to John’s chest, to his hands—cut him open and carved him up and dissected him—sitting in an innocuous little bowl that Scott can’t help but keep seeing out the corner of his eye. With a groan he pulls his legs tight to his chest and wraps his arms around them, drops his forehead against his kneecaps, and shuts his eyes.

Whatever he allows to happen next isn’t sleep, but he doesn’t think he’s quite awake, either. He goes away somehow. The corridor is still and silent but for the faint buzz of a fluorescent light directly over head. This dims to nothing in both directions, he can’t see much further than about ten yards in either direction. Scott tries to make the world smaller still, tries to shrink it down until he’s the only person in it. There’s nothing behind him but the smooth concrete of the wall at his back. There’s nothing below him but the bedrock of stone, eons old, grounding him to the earth. Everything that happens around him is impermanent, a brief little snatch of time that means next to nothing. The whole of creation ends at the tips of his fingers, digging tight against the fabric of his khakis.

The world blows back into proportion with the slam of the door once again, and Ben’s standing over him as Scott lifts his head.

Scott’s not sure who’s meant to speak first. He finds himself wishing that this were Kyrano, because whatever erroneous conclusions Scott had drawn in the first place, Ben’s a different man. Ben is colder and harder and scarier. There’s something about him that triggers an instinct of Scott’s—an old paradigm founded in “stranger danger” and the fact that the whole world is a great deal more dangerous when you’re the son of a multi-billionaire. Ironically, it’s a fact that his version of Kyrano helped hardwire into him.

Kyrano would wait and let him collect himself, would let him lead the conversation with the only question he could possibly have to ask. But this isn’t Kyrano.

“We’ve got a decision to make,” Ben tells him.

“Is John—”

“Independent of John. I want to know about you, separate from John’s context.”

Scott wants to flare at this, wants to hate this stranger for his coldness and his disconnection from whatever the truth is—whatever way the coin has fallen on the other side of the door at his back. But he lacks the energy, lacks the conviction, lacks the courage to try and push back against Ben and the resolute force that’s caught Scott up and keeps pushing and pulling and compelling him along. “Yeah?”

“We have an opportunity, here. I am going to escort the doctor through the tunnels. There’s a boat waiting at the shore of the lake, he’s free to take it wherever he wishes. Our affiliation with him is over, our business is concluded.”

Scott swallows the rising lump of anxiety in his throat, at the ambiguity of this. He knows better than to press for answers, so he picks another of the thousands of questions that have been eating into him. “Who the hell is he?”

This, for some inexplicable reason, brings a faint smile to Ben’s face. For a moment, in the low light and from this angle, he looks like Kyrano again. “I don’t know what he’d call himself now. A doctor, I suppose, though he’s long without a license. He was a medic. He’s absolutely and utterly insane, but then, war will do that.”

This is oddly chilling and another question falls off the pile—“What war?”

“No war you’ve ever heard of. But we’re getting off the subject. We have the opportunity to make our exit, here and now. Gordon’s been brought to the people who have the best odds of helping him. He’s clearly still dangerous, it’s impossible to say whether he’ll ever cease to be a threat. We have no obligation to have any further part in this. Do you want to leave?”

Scott wants to go home. “Where would we go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would...I-I mean...if he’s still...if he’s not dead, then John’s still gotta be in bad shape. Would we take him someplace safe?”

“I don’t know where we would go, but it wouldn’t be dependent on John.”

Scott swallows again and settles into the courage of his convictions. Even if it means he stays here, even if it means he’s the one who has to bury his brother—“Then I guess I don’t know either. So I can’t answer. Because I’m not going anywhere without John.”

This time, Kyrano’s smile is genuine. For a moment Scott considers the possibility that this was a test, and he’s lucked his way into giving Ben the right answer. But then, that’s stupid. There was never any other answer possible. “Then I suppose you can ask him before you come to any conclusion. He’ll probably be a few minutes coming around, and let me escort the good doctor out of the way. But he’s going to be fine, Scott. Try not to think about it too hard, but I promise you; he’s going to be fine.”

* * *

 Two boys sit knee to knee in the belly of a plane, waiting.

“I could kill _you_ , you know,” says Gordon – Jonquil – whoever he is, with an electric smile. “Even here, like this. Three ways, maybe four.”

He’s sitting in one of the jet’s plush reclining chairs, his arms and legs cuffed by a long chain through a T-bar in the floor. He smirks just a touch.

Virgil’s in the opposite chair with three feet of space separating them, wishing he were anywhere else. 

After the revelation about Alan, Penelope had wasted no time. She hadn’t questioned Gordon’s intel, or asked him to expand, she had simply secured his hands behind his back with her cuffs and shoved him roughly towards Virgil. “Take him to the jet. Secure him. Prepare for take-off. Don’t hurt him,” she had said, hadn’t waited for a response, had set off at a run towards the house, talking into a pin in her collar.

“Is she talking to me or you?” asked Gordon with a shit-eating grin, as Virgil kneed him in the back and forced him to walk downhill.

And so they’re here, just the two of them, and the jet hums around them, ready – eager – to fly. Except he’s grounded, waiting the long minutes for her return.

And now his brother has just threatened to kill him.

Virgil looks up to meet his gaze. Sees Jonquil – Gordon smirking at him, waiting to bait him. “You could try,” he says, but his heart is not in it.

“Ooh-hoo-hoo, tough guy.” he cackles. “I bet all the kids in the playground are afraid of you. You must bench press – what?”

“Fuck you.”

“You draw anymore, big man?”

Virgil grinds his teeth.

“I’ll take that as a no. How about play? You still play the piano, maestro? Chopin? Beethoven? C’mon? Chopsticks? Little bit of honky tonk? No? And your role as rock of the family? Blessed are the cheesemakers? How’s that working out for you?”

Virgil slides across the seat and peers out the window, as if he hasn’t heard him, gazes at the treeline for any sign of his partner’s return. He needs Penelope. He needs her more than he realised. If nothing else he needs her to draw Gordon’s focus, to attract him to her the way she attracts everyone when she walks into a room, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

_Come on, Penelope. Come on. Come on._

“What was it you called me again?” Jonquil keeps his voice light and airy. “A fungus? A virus? A  _thing_? Seems to me we’re not all that different,  _Vic._ ”

“Shut up.”

“Seems to me it’s not Gordon you want back at all. It’s that other guy, right? That naïve, idealistic kid. The kid who was so bright he could be average on purpose. The one who said ‘stuff art college, I wanna get my hands dirty and help people’. The one who stray dogs used to follow home. You think if you can find Gordon that kid is going to be any less dead and buried?”

The truth is Virgil wants to hurt him. The truth is he wants to take him by that stupid, fraying silk tie and ring his neck. The truth is he wants to punch him in those shiny dayglow teeth. The truth is that his first instinct is always to violence now.

_Dead and buried._

Gordon leans forward as far as his chains will allow him. “Did it feel good that he reached out to you?” he asks. “I bet it did. Is it nice that you’re the one he turned to when making the biggest decision of his life? You know it’s a lure, right? A con? He didn’t call you because he thought it up himself. He did it because she prompted him to, ‘Oh, Alan, you’re so brave, you’re so smart, you’re so sexy. Family is soooo important to me, I could never be with a man who didn’t value his.’” He adopts limpid tones, bats his eyelashes.

“Stop it.”

“Does it bother you that she could do that to him? Why? Precious little Allie is all grown up now and fully capable of being led about by his c –”

“Shut up!” He lunches forward and then throws himself back into the chair, aware that he was inches away from Gordon’s – Jonquil’s reach.

Jonquil laughs. “Oh man. You’re so easy a target it’s not even fun. Fish in a barrel, baby.” His fingers form into pistols. “Pew. Pew.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He sinks back into the chair, drums his fingers against the armrest.

His eyelids are heavy, and despite the buzz of adrenalin, there’s the urge to sleep. How long has it been? A day? Two? He should have taken the kid’s advice and let him fly as he slept.

_The kid._

The image of the kid causes his thoughts to skid like a car on black ice. He swerves away from the hazard, trying not to think of names or faces or dead men. Because someone is fucking with him, playing mind games that he can’t even begin to understand. That must be it, because the alternative…

“Virgil, don’t fall asleep. Virgil, I’ll strangle you in your sleep.” The voice is slippery, weedling.

His eyes snap open, and he finds Gordon watching him, sphinx-like from the opposite chair.

“Why?” Virgil’s knuckles crack as they tighten around the arm rest. “Why me? Why do you hate me so much? What did I ever do to you except come after you? Except devote my life to trying to find you? Isn’t that what I was supposed to do? You’re my little brother, for crissakes! That’s my job.”

There’s a moment of quiet, and that feline expression slips a fraction. “I didn’t – He didn’t – We never asked you to come after us.”

“’ _Ask?”_ You didn’t join a punk band and go on the road with them. They. Took. You. They’re a fucking cult. They’re the Manson Clan with better tailoring. They killed Dad and John and they took you.”

He sees Gordon shudder with fury. “They didn’t kill Dad and John.”

The fickle way he says this, the pure indoctrination of it, sets Virgil’s blood to boil. “Of course they did, you fucking zealot.”

Jonquil’s voice is higher and shriller now, the calm mask shredded into something altogether uglier. “They did not kill Dad and John. I–”

“The flight recorder data was tampered with. They staged a hostile takeover attempt 18 months after the crash. You think that was coincidence? What?” He demands, as Gordon’s brown eyes –  Mom’s eyes – so similar to his own – flick away, slide over the interior of the jet without catching on anything. “Do I make you uncomfortable? Does it trouble you to consider that your precious SPECTRUM is the reason our brother is dead?”

Gordon shrugs, presses the pad of his right thumb into the heel of his left hand, then his gaze flicks up to meet Virgil’s. “Does it trouble you to consider he might be alive again?”

* * *

Kyrano likes the Lady Penelope.

She’s a professional, and he has a natural affinity for professionals.

Scott and John are still in the basement. Kyrano’s seen the doctor off, made his way upstairs, hoped to find Penelope and Virgil had managed to incapacitate and retrieve Jonquil. Penelope and Kyrano may have professionalism in common, but he’s not inclined to fault her for not anticipating this.

This is an extinction burst. This is Jonquil, losing his hold on Gordon—or Gordon, desperately trying to cling to Jonquil—and manifesting extremes of his usual behavior in an attempt to stabilize.

If Kyrano were to offer his own excuse, it would be that he’s going on forty-eight hours without having slept. If he were to make an excuse for Penelope, it’s that part of _her_ is in love with part of _him_.

This is not something he likes about the Lady Penelope, but then, it’s not something he’s certain she knows, and so he can’t quite begrudge it to her.

Especially not when the Lady bursts through the chalet’s front door, out of breath and in a state of panic unbecoming a professional.

It’s to her credit that she recovers herself within the span of moments, and though Kyrano might have hoped for a status report, what he gets is a breathless, desperate question:

“Who are you?”

Most people know better than to ask, but then, the parameters of their current situation are unique. Still, he’s careful with his answer, as befits a professional.

“You can call me Ben. We’ll say I’m a mercenary.”

“For hire?”

“Arrangements can be made.”

Penelope nods, and seems to trust him to take her word that he’ll be paid for services rendered. She’s been doubled over, getting her breath back, but she straightens now and her eyes fall to the disarray in the middle of the room, the shoved aside furniture and the discarded defibrillator. “And…and who are they?”

“Scott Tracy and John Tracy.” He sees confusion write itself across her features, sees her formulating theories; that he’s a con artist with a convincing and well informed pair of actors, that he’s unearthed the same scheme that she and Virgil had with regard to the plane crash and that John had survived somehow after all, anything but the apparent reality— “If you need an explanation, then I’m afraid I can’t provide one. If you can accept the reality that the two of them are absolutely who they appear to be, then we can progress.”

She nods and then looks up to meet his gaze again. Her blue eyes are sharp, focused and while he can read the fear in her, Kyrano can see the conviction, too. “If you know who they are,” she begins, and her voice tremors slightly as she continues, “then…do you know Alan?”

The fifth player, the final piece. Kyrano knows more than he wants to, about this Alan, and probably should have said something far, far sooner. “Yes. I know about Alan.”

“SPECTRUM has him. Jonq—Gordon. Gordon said they would kill him. I’ve had Virgil take him, secured him on the plane, we need to get to Boston as soon as possible. But I don’t know if he’s—if Virgil can—no. No, he can’t, he’s not fit to fly. It’s too great a risk, too much to ask—I need a—”

“Scott’s a pilot.”

Penelope knows this, and she seems to sag slightly with relief, but can’t seem to help glancing back at the mess of her living room. Kyrano watches her starting to make plans, to try and account for all the factors, and it endears her to him when she says, “Is—if it’s necessary, if you need him to remain in the care of the doctor you brought, then I’m happy to burn this safe house. For the…for John, I mean. I’m sorry to ask you to leave him. As much time as he needs to recover, I can promise he’ll remain safe here, and—”

Kyrano interrupts, “He’s fine.”

“He had a _heart attack_.”

“He’s been seen to.”

Before Penelope can protest further, the door alongside the fireplace swings open, and John proves the impossible.

Because he’s fine.

He’s shirtless, actually, and there’s colour in his skin again. The scar where his pacemaker had been placed has vanished, the tattoo below the ridge of his collarbone is gone. There’s not a mark on him, and beneath the fairness of his skin, John’s lithely, leanly muscular, no longer weighted down by illness and injury. He stands tall and straight and his eyes are bright, clear blue. He steps light and easily, practically bounds to the top of the stairs, carrying a stoneware bowl in one hand, the rim of it smeared with drying blood and filled with gory hardware.

“Penny!” he exclaims brightly, and if he notices that he’s being goggled at in sheer and utter disbelief, he disregards the fact. “Gotta borrow your kitchen sink. Gonna be a bit of a mess. Sorry!”

And he’s across the room in several brisk, easy strides, disappears into the kitchen. Moments later there’s the sound of running water and a whistled rendition of Ode to Joy.

Scott’s appearance is seconds later, clambering to the top of the stairs, and he says what Penelope’s too much of a lady to give voice to—

“Kyrano, _what the fuck_.”

Well, there’s that blown. Normally a sharp look would silence Scott, but he’s too worked up, wild-eyed and bewildered, pointing at the kitchen, disregarding Penelope and the way she’s gone quite still and pale. “How the hell is—he’s… _fuck_ , how’s he—Kyrano, _he was dying_.”

“I’m fine!” gets called from the kitchen in a bright silver voice, and then there’s a peal of laughter, the sort of borderline hysterical sound that sounds like it’s been borrowed from Jonquil. “Get me a shirt, squirt.” Another laugh, as though this was the funniest thing John’s ever said.

Scott doesn’t seem to think so. Scott looks bewildered and frightened and frustrated and near tears. Kyrano crosses to his side and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says, gently, “You’ve seen your brother put through something very serious and then had to wrangle with something inexplicable. I understand if you’re emotional. They say the world is stranger than we can imagine. What’s real is what we can apprehend, it doesn’t have to be what we can explain.”

“Not fucking good enough,” Scott spits. “I don’t—I _can_ ’t—understand h-how—?”

“I”m telling you not to try. There’s no time, anyway, the Lady Penelope requires our assistance. Are you fit to fly?” Kyrano’s not sure how long the flight will be, but he’s going to need to use it to make sure all his pieces are on the same board.

Scott blinks at this. “Wh—I mean, yeah, I can fly, I can always fly. But where, though, why the hell…?”

“Scott.” It’s Penelope this time, cutting in. She seems to shrink slightly when he turns to her, when his gaze meets hers. She must be a stranger to this Scott Tracy, but Kyrano gets the idea that Penelope Creighton-Ward knows something about her version that makes her nervous, edgy. He wonders how long it’s been since she slept, because her voice shakes and she’s visibly upset as she continues, “Scott, I don’t—I’m sorry, I would need to ask this of you, whoever you were—if you were Spellman or anyone else—please. I need a pilot. I need your help. I’ve—I made a mistake. I made a mistake and your brother is in danger because of it, and I—”

“Which brother?“

It’s not Scott who asks. John’s finished in the kitchen and stands in the doorway, is currently drying off a small, disk shaped pacemaker on the corner of a cotton dish towel. He finds a speck of clotted blood that he’d missed in the sink and flicks it off the side of the device, holding the thing gently, almost reverentially, before he drops it in the pocket of his jeans. “Pen? Is it Gordon, because I’m currently inclined to punch him in the face. If that counts as danger. I’m not the best at punching, but I do know to keep my thumb out. If that helps.”

Penelope turns to him and there’s something imploring in the way she looks up, the way she seems to see past his impossibility. Perhaps she’s caught a glimmer of the world John belongs to, the world where they’re friends. Her voice breaks properly as she uses his name for the first time, “It’s Alan, John.”

John’s eyes widen at this and some of the manic edge dulls out of him. “Then we’re at your service, Penelope.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a quick note, and by way of apology: hard to say when there's gonna be another update to this one, as the triad of authors for whom it's a  
> diversion are all coming up short on time to spend on diversions. We all have other major works, though, and if you haven't yet read the parent works for this particular story, there's plenty of meat on the bones of those stories too! Cheers and thanks for reading <3


	9. The World Between the Wings

_I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. That's what we really pay attention to anyway. We don't talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing._

_Tibor Kalman_

* * *

 

The Universe does not need your consent.

Virgil got that in a fortune cookie when he was 16 years old. The little strip of paper had sat curled around the metal stem of his desk lamp for 18 months, along with his lucky numbers, two and 25.

He thinks about it from time to time, whenever his life jack-knifes out of his control. He thinks about it again, now, as his brother John bounds onto the plane.

It _is_ his brother John, or at least it is a very credible performance of his brother John. No, he corrects himself again, it’s a very credible performance of the person John might be now, if he had been allowed to carry on along his path, if the universe hadn’t deemed him surplus to requirements.

His brother John, looking hale and hearty and back from the dead. Back from the dead twice now, since he seems to have shaken off whatever terminal affliction had affected Marshall Teegarden, like a mild summer cold, like a problem he had already solved and which now bored him, in a supremely Johnny way.

Virgil can’t even find it in him to enjoy the flicker of relief that he’s not dead on the sanded pine floor of the safe house.

He’s followed by the young man Gordon’s taken to referring to as Scott. Maybe it’s because of the age difference, or maybe because the spectre of his real brother, alive and breathing and God knows where, is writ too large, but Virgil can’t see any Scott in Deputy Marshall Simon Spellman’s features.

He’s trailing after John – Teegarden – whomever – with his arms folded, taut as a wire, until one of his hands shoots out to catch the redhead's shoulder. “And I’m telling you, your ribs were _cracked_. I know they were because I cracked ‘em myself, trying to save your life. That was just before I shocked you with two thousand volts of electricity. You need to take it easy, see a doctor, _a real doctor._ ”

“Please. Like you never climbed K2 without oxygen, twenty minutes after taking a lightning bolt to the chest.” The John-impersonator flicks his hand off with an impatient shake.

“I’ve never even climbed K2!”

“Scotty,” John turns clear blue eyes, placid but amused, back on Spellman, “I think we should agree right now that I’m more of an expert on the hare-brained daredevil shit you’ve pulled over the years than you are.”

A more manic John than Virgil remembers, maybe.

“Exnay on the Scottysdey.”

“Just ask Virgil,” says John.

Spellman’s eyes flash towards Virgil, who is still sitting across from Gordon. They are, both of them, fixed in place, and Gordon, who moments ago oozed smarm like a weeping sore, has gone totally silent, his mandible so tight he might just break his teeth.

“Oh,” John shakes his head. “No, not that Virgil. My Virgil. Real Virgil.” He seems to think better of this. “No offence, Virg.”

“Jesus.” Spellman knuckles his forehead.

“He’s the one we count on most to drag your ass out of the fire. But then you probably know that already. Or is your Virgil still in his vegetarian phase?”

“He’s a _vegan_!” says Spellman, “I mean… no, that’s not what I mean.” He turns to Virgil. “I’m sorry. He’s not always like this. I think– ”

“And we need to talk about your wardrobe, Scott.” He tugs on the perfectly respectable blue plaid shirt he has on. “We’re going to Boston. What if I run into someone I know? Woodie Guthrie chic went out in the twenties. And you look like you actually _did_ fall off the back of a railway box car. Don’t you have anything decent to put on? No, don’t answer that. I’ll just have to order something for you when I’m ordering parts for EOS. We’re going to need a shell corporation. Is your inseam still 34’?”

“John, can’t you _focus_ for a moment?” Spellman snaps as Lady Penelope and Krishna board the airplane, each carrying two large duffels.

“Everything alright?” Penelope asks, pausing at the aircraft door. “Jonquil?”

“Don’t call him that!” Virgil snaps and immediately regrets it, though it doesn’t make a mark on Penelope’s sangfroid. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Gordon smirk and his blood boils.

“Marshal Krishna,” says Penelope. “If you would be so kind as to double check the prisoner’s restraints. And I’m sure he has some sort of witless profanity he would like to pass off as a cutting retort.”

“As far as I remember you _love_ my retorts,” says Gordon, but he says it mechanically; his jaw works from side to side and his eyes keep getting pulled in John’s direction.

John is twisting around on himself like a puppy chasing his tail, trying to get a look at the label of his jeans. “Are these -? Are these _counterfeit jeans?_ Did you buy them off the back of a truck? _”_

“Uh.”

“You _did_!”

Sy Spellman shrugs. “It’s Russia.”

“Your net worth is sixty _billion_ dollars.”

“It is not!” His fists clench, but the flash of anger is like a snowflake landing on a hot plate. It sizzles for a moment and then it’s gone. “That’s my dad,” he finishes, lamely, with a guilty glance in Virgil’s direction.  

There’s an awkward silence in the cabin and then Spellman sighs, scratches his neck and says, “Okay. Whatever. Why doesn’t everybody take a seat. We’ll be wheels up in three minutes.”

Virgil heaves himself out of the chair and goes after him, only to find his way barred by John.  “No, no. Thanks, but I don’t think so. You, TB2, are in violation of every statute in the IR handbook short of ‘no uncontained poultry’. Get some rack time.”

“I’m flying this plane.” He surges forward only for John to push him back with unexpected force. The change is him is whip crack fast. Suddenly all his attention is focused on John.

“I don’t think so. You can barely stand.”

“ _I’m fine.”_

“You know what a mistake looks like, Virgil? From the inside out?”

Virgil feels a shiver run down his spine. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“A mistake is just a string of minute choices. Of wrong decisions made again and again. Most mistakes aren’t made by stupid people. They’re made by smart people who were inattentive or compromised. People who were hungry or tired or scared. We’re going after Alan. That means taking on SPECTRUM, and that means mistakes are things we can’t afford. So when you screw up because you’re physically exhausted and we lose Alan forever, remember this as the moment that’ll come back and haunt you for the rest of your life, okay?”

Virgil’s mouth is dry. His lips move. Would John, his John, his brilliant, dense, smarty-pants brother ever have said something like that?

“I don’t know who you really are,” he says, “But you’re a bastard, that’s for sure.”

There’s a softening of those bright, ice-chip eyes, the curl of a lip in a rueful smile. “I learned that one from the best. Get some sleep, Virgil. Like I said, we’re going to need every asset to pull this off, and while you make for an interesting Kung-Fu action figure, I’ve got enough competent fighters on my roster. What I need is your brain, and it’s no use to me if it’s exhausted.”

“My brain?”

“Yeah,” he lifts his chin in Gordon’s direction. “Your brain, his heart.” The Kevlar reinforced cockpit doors click shut in his face.

He turns and sees how Krishna and Penelope are careful not to look at him. How Gordon won’t look away.

Beneath his feet the engines thrum. He drops back into a window seat, pulls his seatbelt around him.

The last thing he hears before he drops into a deep sleep is Scott growling irritably through the cockpit door, “Would you sit down! And what the hell’s a thunderbird anyway?”

* * *

 It's a big enough plane, but it's still too crowded for this many people.

Considering that fully three of them are sleeping, or are _supposed_ to be sleeping, this is an almost singular achievement.

But then, that probably has more to do with _who_ these particular people are, rather than how many of them are present.

Especially as at least two of them appear to be thoroughly extraneous. Definitely duplicate copies of extant individuals. Penelope is very carefully curtailing her thoughts away from that particular line of thinking. She’s directed her attention instead towards more sensible matters.

For her own part, Penelope has parked herself at the rear of the cabin, and she's taking a careful inventory of the supplies Marshal Krishna—Mr. Kyrano, though she hadn't made any connection between this name and the wider world—had helped her haul aboard. This is mostly spy gear, assorted pieces of tech meant to jam or eavesdrop, infiltrate or conceal. She's making her way through the weaponry now, guns and ammo, knives and tasers, grenades and poison and hypodermic syringes.

She should probably be sleeping herself, but she doesn’t think she can. She’s not sure if she’d feel safe to do so, aboard _this_ plane with _these_ people. Perhaps when Virgil’s had some rest, she can find a way to get some rest of her own, but for now she can coast on the drowsy hours she’d spent curled on the couch in her safehouse, before everything had gone quite mad.

Instead of thinking of the madness, she’s thinking regretfully of the fridge and freezer stuffed full of all the food she’d had Virgil fetch, and how it’ll all go to waste. It’s the sort of thing that needles and nettles at her conscience, though it’s such a small and stupid thing to be bothered by. Food is temporary. Food goes to waste. It’s hardly as though it matters.

It’s just a mark of how differently things had gone from what she’d expected, and she sighs, shakes her head to herself. It’s foolish, really. Things have clearly gone beyond the bounds of what she possibly _could_ have expected, and yet—

Regardless. It doesn't matter. Best to do something useful.

There's something comforting about putting objects in order, even if they're objects like these. Penelope's carefully, patiently loading nine millimeter rounds into a magazine, when the cockpit door opens and draws her attention.

She watches Scott slip into the cabin behind the cockpit, watches as he proceeds down the aisle. He skirts carefully past Gordon and steps lightly past Kyrano. He pauses for a moment in the aisle nearest Virgil's place— _he_ at least, is actually asleep, because Penelope knows that he breathes evenly when he's really out, but assumes a slight snore when he's faking—but it suddenly becomes apparent that it's not Virgil he's looking for.

"Ma'am," he whispers, and to his credit, doesn't seem unduly distressed by the heap of hardware she's stacked neatly on the seat beside hers. "Uh...was wondering if—uh, that is, only if you don't mind, your ladyship—d'you mind coming and sitting up front for a while?"

Penelope looks him up and down in a very deliberate, very penetrating sort of way, watches him squirm slightly beneath her gaze, before she asks, "Is everything quite all right?"

"Yes'm. I...I mean, yeah, there's nothing _wrong_ and I don't mean—like, not for long. Just like twenty minutes, let me stretch my legs, eat something maybe. The auto-pilot's on, and we're clear the rest of the way across the Atlantic, it's just..."

He shrugs, and something about the movement snags Penelope's notice, has her looking at and actually _seeing_ him. His hands have burrowed into the pockets of his khakis and his shoulders shift beneath his too-big t-shirt. One of Virgil's. It fits him like a _tent_ , hangs off his frame, and makes him seem a great deal younger than he should be, for flying a plane full of—well. Of people like her. Spies and mercenaries and assassins and cyberterrorists, and him looking as though he ought still to be in college, getting into trouble no worse than what he might rustle up in a bar or a strip club. Where he'd probably still need to show ID to get through the door. He clears his throat and shakes his head, even as Penelope sets aside her ammo box and her halfway loaded magazine.

"—it's just, uh. J's kinda...I mean, he's fine. He's fine, and I'm _glad_ he's fine even if I don't know _how_ he's fine—but he's just—like, he is _up_ , your ladyship. Like, he's just spun up like _crazy_ and he won't _shut his damn face_ and he's _kinda_ starting to get to me, and I just need a bit of a break. Ma'am. If you don't mind." He hesitates and adds, managing not to look over his shoulder at Gordon or across the aisle at Virgil, "I just, I mean, you seem like you've maybe got a pretty decent handle on crazy."

He's very lucky that she's exactly the sort of person who'd laugh at that, softly and in the lowered lights of the cabin, with her lap full of bullets.

"Of course, dear." She casts a slightly rueful glance at the half-finished task arrayed around her. It can wait for twenty minutes or so, she supposes, as she gets to her feet. Her thumbs are getting a little sore from pressing against bullets, anyway. "I don't suppose," she jokes, as she gets to her feet and steps into the aisle, "you'd happen know your way around Messrs Heckler and Koch?"

This gets a slight sort of a grin, the sort that—were he a few years older—might even have managed to be cocky. For the briefest, strangest moment she's reminded of Jonquil, before he shrugs again and answers, "Well, I _am_ with the GDF, ma'am. Uh. I can see how you maybe wouldn't believe me, but that's true. And anyway, a gun's a gun."

"Well, then, by all means, make yourself useful. I find that always makes _me_ feel better." Penelope smiles at him—the sort of smile that would be flirty, were he a few years older—and pats his arm lightly as she sidles past him and heads for the cockpit.

* * *

 "I didn't _think_ he was really going to the bathroom," is the comment he opens with, chipper and bright, as she takes the co-pilot's seat and settles herself in. "But you're not the babysitter I was expecting."

"Marshall Krishna's resting," Penelope answers primly, and folds her hands on her knees, her legs crossed at the ankles.

There's a flash of a grin, like a lightning strike. " _Ha_. Ben Kyrano's in a state of guru-on-the-mountaintop style meditative hypersleep, you mean."

"I don't believe that's even remotely what I meant, no."

 _This_ gets a soft chuckle, and for the first time, he glances up from the instrument panel and Penelope takes a moment to _really_ look at him.

She's seen pictures, of course. Of who he's supposed to be. Or, _a_ picture, at least, the beat up and worn out snapshot that Virgil carries in his wallet; the one where a crease obscures Scott's features. The one which catches John at a bad angle, his face turned away from the camera, tilted downward as though attending to his youngest brother; Alan is cherubic and blond and smiling, snugged securely against the redhead's side. The one where Virgil's half the age she knows him at now, and half the size, besides that. The one where Gordon is sitting front and center, the only reason Virgil carries the picture at all, the photo he pulls out at the earliest opportunity, once he's found someone willing to listen to him. The photo of the dead boy, who she'd looked at and _recognized_.

The _other_ dead boy—well. She'd paid him no mind. John was the brother that Virgil had seen buried. Gordon was the brother he'd seen alive, grinning at him across a courtroom, the same cheeky bastard smile that he wears in the damned picture. The same smile she likes to kiss off his lips.

But the less thought about that, the better.

So it's not that strange that she'd never paid particular attention to John. John's dead, after all. Virgil doesn't talk about his second brother that often, and when he does, it's really only in respect to the family that had survived him. John, who'd known Scott best. John, killed in Gordon's crash. John, who Alan doesn't really remember. John, Virgil's dead brother.

John, apparently sitting next to her in the cockpit of a dubiously acquired plane, and looking at her just the same way she's looking at him; with studied intensity, like he's trying to figure her out.

Penelope, uncharacteristically, breaks first and looks away, feels a slight flush colour her cheeks before she manages to glance back.

Another quicksilver smile, a mercurial change in intensity as he laughs again, light and easy. And then, non-sequitur—"Can you fly a plane?"

She misreads this, mistakes it for another casual opener to conversation, as though he's attempting to find some common ground about which they can have a discussion, and she's forced to disappoint him. "No, I'm afraid not."

"Oh. _Hmm._ I suppose Scooter was just getting a little sick of my company, then. Can't blame him. I'm a little bit...I mean, I'm kinda—"

John's hands twitch against the controls, and the nose of the plane jerks upward, and then levels off immediately thereafter, but not before Penelope's startled and gasped and been laughed at again, by someone who's beginning to seem as though he should be anywhere _but_ at the helm of an aircraft in flight.

Before she can comment, the cockpit door jerks open and Scott storms in, slaps a hand on the back of the pilot's seat and _barks_ , "John Glenn _Fucking_ Tracy. The _autopilot is on_. Your job is to _keep her level_ . I don’t _care_ if you just came back from the damn dead, if you think you can screw around at the helm of a vessel in flight, then your hyperactive ass is gonna get the _fuck out_ and you can _walk_ the rest of the way to Boston. Are we clear? Do that again and I'm waking _Kyrano_ up. Sit _still_. Calm _down_. _Fly_."

The cockpit door slams shut again, with the sort of force that's probably woken Mr. Kyrano anyway.

Penelope's got nerves of gilded steel, she's rarely anything like visibly unsettled, even in the presence of people who are obviously violent or dangerous. A very important part of her is, after all, caught between two people who are, respectively, the most violent and the most dangerous of anyone she's ever known. But Virgil and Gordon are both asleep right now.

And she's never spent this much time in the company of a dead man before.

It turns out that, even for someone like Penelope, it's the sort of thing that's _deeply unsettling_.

The dead man takes a deep, steadying breath and this time his grin is a little sheepish, apologetic. "Sorry, Pen. Uh. Yeah, sorry. _Anyway_. It's just funny, that he'd send you up here, if you can't fly a plane." John pauses and then adds, almost guiltily, "Funny that he'd assume that _I_ can fly a plane."

Penelope's heart leaps to her throat and she’s forced to ask the necessary question around it, " _…can_ you fly a plane?"

It would be better if he'd stop _smiling_ at everything, but she's beginning to wonder if he can help it. Perhaps it's some sort of manic spasm, some awful seizure of facial muscles that's only an approximation of an actual smile. Rigor mortis trying to creep back in where it rightfully belongs. "Well! I mean, obviously that's the wrong question, considering that I _am_ flying the plane. Ipso facto, I _can_ fly the plane. Better question! Do I know _how_ to fly a plane?"

She shouldn't have left all the hypodermics at the back of the plane. Doesn't matter. She doesn't need them. If she were to move quickly enough, she could probably get just enough leverage and act just quickly enough to perform a carefully practiced sleeper hold. Pressure at the arteries at the sides of his neck. Cut the blood flow to his brain for just long enough to blank him out of consciousness for a few minutes. Restrain him somewhere. Wake Virgil up and plunk him down at the controls, because Penelope's beginning to realize that there's only one other person on this plane that she can actually _trust_ , and that might just be the most terrifying thing about this whole ordeal so far.

Except—

There's a sudden widening of John's blue eyes, and suddenly he's looking at her like he can _see_ her. And maybe he can, because some of the manic energy seems to drain out of him, and the blithe, devil-may-care cavalier is edged out by shades of someone far more serious, someone suddenly concerned, as he catches on—

"—oh, shit. Fuck, no, I'm scaring you, aren't I? Am I scaring you? Penny?"

"Don't call me _Penny_ ," Penelope snaps in answer, which seems as close to a yes as she can manage without losing face. It must tell in her body language anyway, because she can feel the way she's gone tense all through, wound tight like a coiled spring; the way she's pulled herself up and drawn away from him, as far away as she can get without vacating the co-pilot's place. She masters herself, glares at him, and says, "That is the third time you've called me _Penny_ and I don't care _who_ you are, because I don't _know you_ . You do _not_ have my permission to use that name, and I'll thank you to please _stop_."

Scott's sharp, profanity-laced censure seemed as though it had rolled off John's shoulders like water off a duck's back. But _hers_ makes him cringe slightly, gets a nod in answer. And, improbably, seems as though it might just start to take the edge off him. He takes a deep breath and settles, somewhat. After a few more seconds, contrite and genuine, he says, "Lady Penelope, I'm sorry. There's...augh. There's no excuse for...uh, for my behaviour. If I can offer anything in my defense, it's that there might be a _reason_ , but I don't entirely know what it is. A side effect. Maybe. That might be a better word."

The way his voice is sincere, the way he seems so earnest prompts her to uncoil, just slightly. "Should you be flying this plane?" she queries, to get that out of the way.

He hesitates a moment, and seems to consider the question carefully before he gives a deliberate nod. "I'm fully capable of keeping us in the air. Autopilot's on, plane's mostly flying itself, at the moment, and Scott's more than ready to take over, if there's a need. Not that there'll be a need. And I do know _how_ to fly, I just—I don't, really. I haven't in years, not since before my da—ahh. I mean, my license is ages out of date, and I haven't been on _Earth_ in years, I just—" he trails off and seems to catch himself in the act of rambling and seems to conclude that it can't be helping his case. "Sorry, Pe—Lady Penelope."

"It's quite all right. You're forgiven."

This time his smile is sad, a little sardonic. "I'll take your word for it." He coughs awkwardly, shrugs, and promptly apologizes _again_ . It's starting to seem as compulsive as the smiling. "Anyway, I'm sorry for upsetting you. I'll...I'll try and get a better handle on it, I just feel...I feel like I'm actually _alive_ again, for the first time in—god. It seems like ages. I hadn't realized how much was wrong."

Penelope nods and unwinds herself a little further, takes a few deep breaths of her own and tries to relax. "You did seem rather unwell, when first we met. I'm—" _—absolutely, totally, and completely unable to apprehend what's happened to you, who you are, what you're doing here or why you seem to know me, and yet—_ "—glad you're feeling better."

"Thank you. That's...I mean, that's your typical aristocratic understatement, though, Pen, because I _did_ make an active attempt to die on your living room floor. Possibly I _did_ actually die in your basement. I don't know. I remember red light and blue light and concrete and blood—and quite a lot of Scott, for some reason—all kitted up in a not inconsiderable amount of pain. But other than that handful of bits and pieces, I really don't remember much."

Penelope winces at the thought. "We don't need to talk about that," she offers, and hopes he takes it the way she means him to, kindly, and to spare him any trauma that might be associated with the memory. She can hardly imagine, but to the degree that she can, she imagines it can't have been pleasant.

John chuckles and in spite of herself, as he calms down, Penelope's beginning to find herself rather endeared to him. It had been easier, a little more immediate, when he'd been clearly ill and ailing and in need of help and care and sympathy. This brighter, heartier version seems as though he might almost be capable of something like charm. "Mmhm. There's a whole lot of 'not talking about it' running all around and through this whole mess, and I'm not a fan. To the best of my knowledge of you, _you_ shouldn't be either. We've both always preferred for everybody to be on the same page, when it matters."

It's the sort of statement that makes her wince, and he doesn't seem to realize just what sort of damage an offhanded remark of such a nature can do. She sighs, and implores, "I do wish you'd stop saying things like that."

True to form, this seems to take him by surprise and he glances over, arches an eyebrow. "...Have I been saying things like that?"

Penelope nods, and by this stage she's relaxed to the point that she's almost comfortable, sitting next to this redheaded semi-stranger, who calls her by her nickname and can tell when she's been frightened. "Yes. Frequently. I'm just...you must understand, in my line of work, to be recognized and not to know who by or where _from_ —it's just rather distressing, darling."

She’s not sure where the _darling_ came from.

John nods, considerate again, and then takes his hands from the controls and settles back in his seat, thoughtful. "Mmm. So, on a ranking of say, one to ten: how would you say our first real conversation's going? On a scale of distress to enlightenment?"

She doesn't laugh, but there's a soft little huff of breath that denotes her amusement, to those who know her. "A solid three. Perhaps a three and a half. Especially considering that this is our _third_ conversation."

"Oh. I don't remember the first two. " A pause, and then, hopefully, "How were _they_?"

This time she laughs softly, and can't help it. "Oh, I don't know. I'll give you an average of five between them both. You were nearly naked on both occasions. Half-asleep for the first, newly awake for the second. You said things that unsettled me. And we mostly talked about Jonquil."

John corrects her, as he's apparently wont to do, "Gordon."

Penelope sighs and shrugs. For a little while longer, at least, she doesn't want to talk about either of them. It's with a certain dreary sarcasm that she comments, "Same difference."

"Oh, I'd disagree there. Two sides of the same coin, maybe."

She's suddenly struck by the thought that in the totality of things he appears to have forgotten, John probably has utterly no recollection of the way he'd broken down the binary of Gordon/Jonquil. _Penelope_ remembers, and remembers being struck by the poetry of the sentiment, by the sheer quantity of love in its rendering, and by its astonishing accuracy. There's something rather sad about this, and it makes her want to wilt in her seat, to slouch down and curl up and be as wearied and tired by the whole affair as she deserves to be.

And, oddly, for a while John falls silent, as though he can tell that silence is what she'd prefer. Five, ten minutes pass. It's almost companionable. Penelope's just wondering how Scott's getting on with her little armory, when John clears his throat. "Lady Penelope?"

"Mmm?"

"So, conversationally, on average, so far I've scored about a four?"

"I could charitably extend it to a five."

"Ouch."

Taking a slight pleasure in his offense, though still charitably, she offers, "Well, it's quite all right, darling, you've hardly been at your best. I'm sure in other circumstances you're a sterling conversationalist. When you're not sleepwalking. Or secretly sickening to the point of death. Or pretending you know how to fly a plane. On an average day, in ideal conditions, I'd credit you the potential to be as interesting as perhaps as a six and a half."

“Oh _thanks_. Six and a _half._ "

"The half is just the social tax deducted off of a seven, for having to interact with you in the first place."

This time his laugh is sudden and genuine, the sort of thing that might just have unsettled her again, if it weren't for the pure joy in it, and the lightness in his voice as he says, "God _damn_ it, Penny. You're the only person in my entire life who consistently nails me to the wall like that."

She isn't, actually. She's barely known him for twenty-four hours, and he'd spent half that time unconscious. But there's something strange and undeniable burgeoning between them, and in spite of herself, Penelope's starting to realize that perhaps John's right. Perhaps she's beginning to wish that they could be on the same page, because she's becoming very curious about what she might read, on her page in his book.

And the way he looks over at her, with something so like esteem and affection—something so like _friendship_ that she wonders when she stopped being able to see it for what it is—well. Perhaps it's not so bad if he calls her Penny, after all. Perhaps she'd like to find out just why he does.

And so, shyly, genuinely, glancing at John Tracy—Penny smiles back.

And then Scott raps his knuckles on the cockpit door, and comes back in to take over.

* * *

 John drops into the seat across from his and the first thing Jonquil knows is that he’s not as afraid as he should be.

And that won’t do.

So he smiles his scariest smile, pulls lips back from gleaming teeth and grins that shark’s grin, the one that let’s people know he’s ready, willing, and fully capable of fucking them up. It only seems fair, only seems courteous, to warn of his intentions towards anyone foolish enough to sit in the hotseat, the seat right across from him; the place he _knows_ he can reach, if he has to. “Howdy, gingersnap.”

But John just smiles right back, caught somewhere between beatitude and mania. “Hi. I got kicked out of the cockpit.”

It’s interesting, as an opener. So Jonquil squares up to the bait and gives it a bit of a nibble. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because I’m not very good at flying a plane.” He laughs and settles more comfortably in his seat, props his right ankle up atop left his knee and doesn’t stop smiling. “Scott didn’t think it was very funny.”

Jonquil doesn’t think so either, but the response is automatic. “Scott’s a bit of a raging dickhead.”

John shrugs and Jonquil remembers what seems like a long ago encounter in an airport backroom, when a dark haired punk kid had just about jumped the table, in defense of his newfound big brother figure. Not literally. Figuratively. Jonquil’s not sure if it's the same reversal of polarity from little brother to big brother is what has the redhead mounting a defense. “Oh, he’s not so bad. I don’t think so, anyway, though he certainly makes a change from what I’m used to. I think. I mean, it's hardly a fair comparison, my Scott's got ten years of life experience on this one. For the _life_ of me, I can’t remember what Scott was like at twenty-two. I’m a little…fuzzy, I guess, on some things. Razor sharp on others. I know had an ice cream cake at my fifth birthday party and then I threw up for an hour afterward, and that’s how we found out I have a dairy allergy. I wonder if I still have a dairy allergy. Did your version of me have a dairy allergy? We should get an ice cream cake. Fuck, you know, it’s been twenty-three years since I’ve had an ice cream cake, it might just be worth throwing up for an hour. Anyway. Things I remember. Or don't. I think it’ll all sort itself out, so for now I’m not worrying. But yeah, no. No, he’s okay. Scott’s okay. C’mon, give him a break. He’s just a kid.”

This all rattles out of John out at a rate consistent with someone who’s just crammed a handful of amphetamines in his face, but Jonquil’s always been able to listen just as fast as he talks, and he's picked out the most salient points of the infodump. “You wouldn’t be inclined to give him a break, if you knew what I know about Scott Fucking Tracy.”

"You'd realize that you're a pale imitation of _actual_ hyper-competence, if you knew what _I_ know about Scott Fucking Tracy." A pause. "And it's _Carpenter_ , actually. I'll admit I was always glad to be second, on that score." Another pause, and a flash of a grin again. "Sorry, Cooper."

Something about the casual use of the name that isn’t his prickles irritation down Jonquil’s spine. All of them—even this doppelganger copy of his dead—his _murdered_ older brother—are trying to snuff him out, excise him. He’s not going to put up with it. "My name's not Cooper."

“Sorry, Gordon.”

And John smiles at him. And Jonquil starts to wonder if it’s worth the effort to slip out of these shackles and batter the grin off his stupid ginger face.

He’s pretty sure he could slip out of these shackles. He’s been stripped of anything that he might’ve used to pick the locks, that’s a passable excuse for why he’s not loose yet. It’s not for lack of trying. He hasn’t quite managed it yet, because despite being made of solid beef, especially in the brainpan, Virgil at least seems to know his way around a pair of cuffs. And Penelope had checked them and then Ben had _rechecked_ them, and given Jonquil a hard clout on the back of the head for having managed to find the correct angle and the correct leverage to start to wrench the rivets of the cuff on his left ankle loose. _Then_ Ben had been an utter bastard, and set that right.

John’s still smiling, and it’s starting to get annoying.

There’s a lot to tell about a person from their smile. On John it looks _wrong_ somehow, out of practice. A little too wide, a little disproportionate to the situation. Like he’s forgotten how to dial it back, like his face isn’t used to it; like he hasn’t had much to smile about lately. He shouldn’t have anything to smile about _now_ , considering where he is and what’s happened _to_ him, what’s happening around him. Jonquil had preferred him as a fading, greying ghost-in-the-making. He likes this version far less.

He probably needs to come down a notch, or three. Probably needs to be reminded of the sobering reality.

So.

“I could kill you, you know,” Jonquil informs him pleasantly, with his own carefully studied, carefully _practiced_ smile still in place. “Three ways, maybe four. Even like this.”

It’s dim in the cabin of the plane, in deference to the people sleeping aboard it. But John shifts in his seat, and light from somewhere catches a gleam in his eyes. “Oh?”

Jonquil swallows, sets his jaw. “Yeah.”

“How?”

He feels the tic, feels the twitch of a muscle betraying a tell, giving away the lie. He’s tired, or that wouldn’t have happened. He shakes his head, feigns exasperation, rolls his eyes like it’s the stupidest question he’s ever heard. “Now, _now_ , Red, that’d be telling.”

John laughs at him, though he’s careful to keep it courteous, quiet. “Well, uh, yeah. That’s why I asked. I’m assuming you mean in a different way from the way you killed me the first time.”

It’s a ballsy, brazen sort of question for a dead man to be asking, especially a man as dead as John should be. John’s supposed to be dead twice over by now, because for all the desperation and hope and general pathetic fucking idiocy locked up in the vault of his gold tinted soul, Jonquil hadn’t actually expected that Gordon would get to help save his brother’s life. Neither of them know what to make of that. He was never _actually_ supposed to get that second chance. John Tracy is _supposed_ to be dead.

It makes this version of him particularly offensive, a fly in the ointment, a grit in the gears of a well-oiled and well-ordered universe. Still, Jonquil shrugs and plays this off, “Well, lucky for you, I’m not actually inclined towards murdering you, right at the moment. But, y’know, keep talking. That could change.”

He’s kind of hoping to scare John off, but this has the opposite effect. The redhead reaches down and pulls a lever, and his seat tips back a few degrees. His long fingers lace together behind his head and he doesn’t even have the decency to look away. Instead pale blue eyes just continue to make a slow, careful survey, and Jonquil feels as though he’s being studied, carefully picked over and examined. Doesn’t especially care for it. “Your mother ever tell you it’s rude to stare?”

“Probably. Sorry. I mean, I’m not _actually_ ; that was a lie. I’ll stare if I want to. Not exactly as though there’s much else worth looking at, right at the moment. The only thing Penny told me was that I’m not allowed to wake Virgil. Actually, she said that if I wake Virgil, then she’ll break my arm. I don’t think she’d do it, I think that was just a warning. But that’s okay, I don’t want to wake Virgil. You were awake, anyway. It was you I wanted to talk to.”

What snags on his brain this time around is the way _Penny_ gets said. No one calls her Penny. _He_ doesn’t call her Penny. She’s Pen or Penelope, or Teacake or Ladyfingers or Honeytrap or Sugarcube, though he’s pretty sure he’s going to take that last one out of the rotation. She’s a whole host of other, filthier things, too, when the occasion arises. He wonders if it would bother John to hear them listed, but before he can start—

“Actually, I had a question. And an actual and genuine apology, if you’d like one.”

Well. If there’s one point in his favour, apparently John knows the same things Jonquil knows, about baiting other people through a conversation. Apparently he knows how to say the sort of things that make other people curious—not Jonquil. Jonquil is clever enough to see right through this schtick, and awareness of the psychological trick surely makes him proof against it. So it’s with nothing like curiosity and instead only a professional’s intrigue when he says, “Oh, this oughta be good. Yeah, redcap, hit me. Actually on _that_ note, lemme guess where you’re gonna start. Sorry for bouncing my poor pretty face off a bar table? Sorry for telling your pet goon to _shoot me_? Sorry for seizing on the thread that held my whole psyche together and then _pulling_ , John _Dead Man_ Tracy? Sorry for busting me open, dragging my guts out and mucking around with ‘em, and then kidnapping me off of Cloudbase? Am I in the neighbourhood? Warmer, colder? Give a guy a hint.”

“No, none of those things, particularly.” John’s fingers come unlaced from behind his head, and he has the temerity to lean forward into the dangerzone, as he squints at Jonquil’s face. If Jonquil were in a slightly worse mood, he’d just _headbutt_ him, teach him a lesson. At the moment, he’s not interested in the headache. Even if he owes John one. “Though I’d forgotten about the bar table. I did do that, didn’t I? I’d say it’s funny that I forgot, only—hmm. No, I can still see it, actually, there’s still a bit of bruising, but…”

“I heal fast.” Short, snarled almost. This isn’t something he’s actually allowed to talk about, and he growls like a dog on a chain, warding John away from it. “Perk of the job.”

He doesn’t take the hint. “It wasn’t more than two, three days ago. Sorry, I’m a little muddled up, timewise. Less than that, maybe. I thought I’d maybe broken your nose—I mean, more than it was broken already. How _did_ you break your nose, by the way? Gordon ran full tilt and face first into a hurricane proof glass door back when we first moved out to the island because he wanted to throw himself into the pool and also because he’s an idiot. I think you're also a bit of an idiot, but I don’t know if you swim. Or if you have an island. We have an island, it's nice. Anyway. Blacked both your eyes, though, that’s for sure. I did, I mean. Bouncing your face off a bar table. _That_ , I remember. And there was definitely a cut on your nose. And now I can barely tell it happened at all. So, you heal _really_ fast, apparently.”

“Like _you_ can fucking talk.”

John has the grace to nod, at this, considering he was all but dead on the floor of Penelope’s safehouse, not even five hours ago. “Point. Anyway. Yes, I guess I bounced your face off a bar table.”

Jonquil jumps on that, pounces like a kitten, and hopes to herd the conversation along, out of dangerous territory. “And you’re _not_ sorry for that. For breaking my poor damn face.”

“Well, I’m sure you deserved it and clearly you got better. But no, that wasn’t what I meant.”

Jonquil’s beginning to wonder if he’s this annoying, himself. He likes to think not. He’s always mentally painted himself as rather charming, on the whole, dogged and insistent and if he’s occasionally a bit of an asshole, well, that’s just the job. Sometimes you have to be an asshole. The John he remembers was an asshole, too. “Well, what then?”

“I’m sorry nobody else seems to believe you’re a real person.”

That’s—oh.

Jesus, that’s just exactly the sort of thing an asshole would say, too. It’s lucky they’ve got that in common, or it might just get his back up. He flashes a defiant grin. “What, who, lil ol’ me? 'course I am. Flesh and blood, baby, I’m a real boy. All my bits work and everything. Fully and totally in control of the meatsuit. Not exactly a revelation. Check your pity at the door. I know what I am.”

There’s something just a little bit sad about John’s smile, this time. “No, I know. And I know _you_ know. But other people don’t credit you with the rights that extend to an actual person, and I think that’s a shame. Well, Penny might, but Penny’s different. Scott's terrified of you. Kyrano thinks you're just psychological programming. And Virgil hates you. I mean, like, he _really_ hates you. He doesn’t think you’re…he thinks you’re something that can be got rid of. Like it wouldn’t mean the end of you, like it would just be like flipping a switch and getting Gordon back, the Gordon he remembers."

There's a pause, and then, "Virgil's being, like, a weapons-grade bastard."

But it's John who's said it, and not Jonquil. And it's just possible that Gordon's the reason that he sits up and takes notice, because it's not the kinda thing he was expecting Johnny to say.

“ _Thank you_. Uh, _yeah_. Yeah! He _is_.”

John's not smiling as he says this. He's serious, thoughtful, and it's almost like he's not actually talking to Jonquil as much as he's musing his way through his own thoughts, and Jonquil just happens to be eavesdropping. "He doesn’t consider that you’re a person of your own. He doesn’t consider that maybe you’re the reason Gordon still exists _at all_. That maybe you’re necessary. Maybe you’re protecting that other half of yourself. He doesn't even have the sense to think you're _useful_ , when it's obvious that you're more useful than Gordon would be, in a situation like this. That's not your fault.”

The mention of Virgil has his hands flexing, has him showing his teeth again, grinning a tight, angry grin. "Flattery'll getcha....well, with me it'll get you exactly nowhere, but hey. I'm down to talk all the shit you want about _Virgil_. Virgil's a 'roided up meat puppet. Virgil's a fuckin' T-800 Terminator. Virgil's a— _hah_ —fuckin' cuckold and a bitch and a pussy and Pen's got that choke chain on him so tight that the blood's cut off to his brain. Pathetic. Nobody should want _Virgil_ for a big brother."

It's not clear how much of this, if any of it, John agrees with, but he nods anyway. "To be fair, I don't think he's _actually_ that stupid, but he _is_ that stubborn. And you're right that he's letting you down, in the big brother department." A beat and then a faint smile. "I'll work on that. Later. When talking to him won't get my arm broken."

Jonquil rolls his eyes and scoffs at this, pretends indifference, but remembers a conversation that John might just have forgotten, the way he’s talking now. Like they haven’t talked about this before. Like his ideas hadn’t been seductive and beguiling, and, if part of him is honest, more than a little terrifying. Hardware/software. Binary stars. Virgil had heard all that too, and it hadn't seemed to make one goddamned bit of difference. Fucking _Virgil_. “I don’t know what you think you’re gonna accomplish, trying to get on my good side. I haven’t got a good side.”

John shakes his head, sighs a little. “Only, you _do_ , though. His name’s Gordon Tracy, and he’s genuinely one of the best people I’ve ever known. I suppose if we’re having this conversation for anyone’s benefit, it might be his. I get the idea that _you_ think you’re too cynical to listen to me. But he and I never talk like this, except when it really matters. I think you would've done something to hurt me by now, if he weren't listening too. I suppose I'd just like him to know that, for what it's worth, I'm trying to be on your side. Both of you. I think you're a spectrum, not a binary."

Jonquil sneers, but it might just be to cover up the fact that Gordon's listening. "Is that supposed to be a joke?"

John blinks and then laughs. "Oh. No, that's just the sort of thing I say, sometimes. I _have_ a joke, though. You might even think it's funny."

"I doubt that, but might be I'd humour you."

"Ha. All right." John shifts in his seat again and leans forward, squares up to Jonquil like he's not afraid of him in the least, like he doesn't realize just how dangerous it is to put himself anywhere within reach. His blue eyes are clear and calm and genuinely amused as he says, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.”

In spite of himself, Jonquil laughs.

And John smiles.

And Gordon protests that he doesn’t get it.

And the cabin radio crackles to life, as Scott informs his passengers to buckle up, as they make their approach into Boston.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Nonsense rides again! We're back! Not sure for how long or how it'll all shake out, but goddamn this thing is brisk. There's another 10k+ on top of this, too, just waiting to be rounded out and re-ordered and then shuffled into a proper chapter. Thanks to everyone who puts up with this insanity, we're all three of us having a hell of a lot of fun <3 This piece has been more popular than any of us ever expected, and none of us know why. Thanks for reading!


	10. The Plight of Player Five

He wakes in a windowless room.  

Which is strange, considering he can’t even remember falling asleep.  And actually, he’s not sure this can be considered  _waking up_  at all, because it feels as though the entire rest of his body is still stuck on the other side of consciousness—slow and heavy.  Sore.  It’s dizzying.  He has to be caught in a dream.

So.  He’s alone in a windowless room.  Isolated.  Real original, brain.  Like he hasn’t seen this one before.

He allows himself a moment to be unimpressed with his subconscious until it occurs to him, sometime between the shiver crawling down his back and his vow never to use the dull silver toilet in the corner, that for this to be a dream, he still would have needed to fall asleep, and he still can’t remember doing so.  The only thing he can remember is Amber.  

Amber, walking hand-in-hand with him down a worn out sidewalk as they pass a sparkling storefront.

Amber, drooling on his pillow as the dawn sneaks through the cracks in his blinds.

Amber, one room over as he makes the call to Virgil—the call he’s put off for so long.  Too long.  Maybe she’s right when she says he needs his family in his life again.

Amber, suddenly awake, just as the screaming starts on Virgil’s end.

Amber, with her hand at his neck, telling him that it’s going to be okay.

He has bruises on his arms.  Not quite sure where those are from.  It’s like he’s been dragged down a staircase—down a dozen staircases.  This has got to be a dream.  He feels like damaged cargo.

All the while, there’s this grotesque thought chewing up the back of his mind, wondering if he’s sick.  If he’s in the hospital.  If Amber had to drive him here, or if she had to watch an ambulance shut its doors, unwilling to grant access to someone who isn’t legally family.  Is it a heart attack?  Is it an aneurysm?  He laughs.  Probably a tumor, with his luck.  Runs in the family.  Dammit.

So he’s in a hospital somewhere, passed out, dreaming the day away.  He wonders if they’ll call Virgil.  Wonders if they’ll try to call Scott first.  Wonders if Scott’s even around to consider making the trip.  God, he can’t be sick.  Virgil doesn’t need another reason to lose his goddamn mind.  Dammit, dammit,  _dammit_.

This little cell block of a room is already too cramped for any effective pacing, but Alan’s long, panicked strides don’t make it any easier.  His legs groan with each step, stiffness strung through thigh, glutes, hips.  He tries his hardest to forget the fact that dreams don’t have such vivid pain. 

And he can hear her voice, an echo in his mind, except that it isn’t in his mind at all.  It’s on the other side of the door and it’s hushed, and he wonders if this is how coma patients view the world—through nonsensical dreams and mismatched conversation.  “It’s done.”

He’s always known this about Amber, that sometimes she doesn’t quite make sense.  It’s what used to keep him coming back, day after day, text after text, an equation he couldn’t leave unsolved.  She has this duality about her that entices and ensnares—reminds him of a photon, and how light will sometimes act as a wave, sometimes act as a particle, but never truly act as expected.  He likes that about her.  He likes that whenever he begins to feel supremely clever, she’s around to surprise him.  To keep him humble.

Except that this experience is far more than just humbling.  This is surreal and painful and terrifying.

“The call was made?” says another voice, older.  Stronger.  He’s never known Amber to take orders from anyone.  

“Heard the screams myself,” she says.  “Agent Jonquil will be on his way back any moment now.”

“And you’re sure this will work.”

“Absolutely, ma’am,” says Amber— _his_ Amber.  Even if he is in a hospital, even if her words are just blurring into his dreams, he can’t make sense of it.  “Jonquil has been watching this boy like a hawk.  Computer records, call records, MIT video feeds.  As far as I can tell, there’s only one thing that will break him, and this is it.”

Alan holds his ear up to the door, listens in on the words he can barely hear.  “I do not want him broken, Agent Amber,” says the older woman.  “I want him returned to me in equal or better condition than when he left.  That boy is one of our greatest assets.”

There’s a silence.  Alan’s breaths feel entirely too loud.  He covers his mouth, closes his eyes, tries to listen to the words that are little more than a cautious whisper now.  “Do you know what they say about fractured bones, Agent Chalk?” she says, and the woman doesn’t answer.  “It’s said they grow to be stronger after the break.”

This time, though, the older woman does answer, certain and superior.  “That, Agent Amber, is absolute nonsense.”

There’s the click of heels, the sort of sound that reminds him of bullets, ricocheting throughout metal hallways.  There’s no pattern—no predictability.  In math, two plus two is always four, but humans have never met the same standards.  Dreams have never needed to be logical.  

“Agent Chalk.”  Amber’s voice again, warmer.  More familiar.  He can almost see the morning sun falling across honey brown hair, striking gold in her dark eyes.  “What happens if he doesn’t come?” she says.  “What happens if Agent Jonquil doesn’t come for the boy?”

A beat.  Alan wishes he could see.  “I thought you said this would work,” says Chalk.

Amber hesitates.  “But what if it doesn’t?”

“Then you already know what happens to the boy, Amber.”

And he’s always relied on Amber—counted on her to be the ever shining light in his life, except now he’s in a windowless room, and it appears as though the light has gone out.  “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

Virgil and Penelope left almost immediately after they’d arrived at the new base of operations—a hotel suite on Beacon Hill in downtown Boston—and Scott didn’t think to ask what they were doing or where they were going, and had only made note of the way Virgil wouldn’t look at him and the way Penelope’s gaze lingered a little too long. Then the door had closed and the both of them had been gone, presumably off to find out more about Alan’s situation.

Kyrano’s got Gordon locked in the bedroom, but it’s not as bad as it sounds.

At the moment it doesn’t sound like anything much, although at one alarming point early in the proceedings there’d been a sharp, bodily impact against one of the walls, a brief scuffle, and then a cry of “Get _off_ , you tiny maniac, fucking—ow o _w ow ow ow_! OW! Uncle! _Uncle_ , I said! Fuck, fuck it, I _give_!”

This was, reportedly, the result of an attempt by Jonquil to go out the window, though after a transatlantic flight’s worth of sleep, Kyrano had been more than up to the task of mitigating Gordon as a flight risk. From the eighth floor, the word “flight” would be more literal than anyone really wants.

So once again, it’s him and John, hunched over a table by a bar.

It’s a far different backdrop than last time. The suite that the Lady Penelope’s acquired has to be a few thousand square feet, three bedrooms , two bathrooms, a _foyer._ A full bar, kitchen and dining room, and a common area with a view of the Boston cityscape that had caught John’s attention for a surprisingly long minute, just stood in front of the broad window in the common space, staring out at the city.

No food or drink on the tabletop this time around, but three separate laptops, a stack of external hard drives, Scott’s wrist comm, John’s pacemaker and piercings, and a shot glass full of saline with his contacts floating in it.

It seems like this is a third version of John, this brought-back-from-the-brink edition. Scott’s not sure where they stand. If nothing else, Scott’s reminded of the stranger in the airport, tall and willowy and focused. Minus the piercings and the couture, but with that supreme air of confidence, that strangely magnetic intensity about him. Only he no longer has any attention to spare for a dumb, gawky kid, lost in the middle of the big wide world.

Since hitting the hotel room and being told that they needed to do some recon before they could do anything else, John’s been absorbed by his cobbled together workstation, arrayed around the tiny silver device at its center. Given permission to be idle, not to focus on the problem of Alan, he’s currently turned his attention to the problem of EOS. He’s concentrating, has been at it for a couple hours now. He hasn’t said much, and Scott’s left feeling as though he’s just sort of...there.

He doesn’t know where he wants to be, but _here_ isn’t at the top of the list.

The flight was long enough that he’s tired now, and he’s tired enough that he thinks he deserves a break. So he’s put his head down on his arms, trying to close his eyes and regulate his breathing and not be a distraction, but there’s a cough from the far end of the table and Scott looks up, meets pale blue eyes that match his own more closely than he likes, right at the moment.

“Hey,” John asks, “you okay?”

“Umm...” Scott covers his lack of an answer with a yawn and shrugs.

“Hungry?”

“Mmn. No.”

“Tired, I guess.”

“Kinda, maybe.”

“Really fucked up about the fact that I had a heart attack in the middle of some anonymous Norwegian chalet eight hours ago, and now I’m perfectly fine?”

“Well, now that you _mention_ it...” Scott tries to follow this with a huff of laughter, because he wants to pretend that the words “fucked up” are a little too strong for the way he feels—but his voice melts into a groan and he drops his face into his arms again. There’s no answer from John, but he hears movement, hears his brother get up from the far end of the table and then pull out the chair next to Scott’s. An elbow knocks against his own.

“Hey.”

“Mm.”

“Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“Been meaning to tell you; you’re a terrible little brother.”

Scott’s head jerks up at this, but John’s got a funny sort of light in his eyes and a smile that Scott’s never seen—sad, somehow. There’s the shadow of something sorrowful behind that sort of half smile, but before Scott can get a word in, John continues, “That’s not just my horrific lack of tact talking, either, I mean you’re just not good at it. You’re the consummate _older_ brother and...I mean, Jesus, Scott, you’ve literally saved my life _twice_ now. And I haven’t even thought to thank you, because in my head that’s just what you’re there for. That’s your function. It’s just what you _do_.”

“I don’t—”

“No, you don’t,” John cuts him off, agreeing before Scott’s even stated the premise. “You don’t understand. Right? I don’t think you understand, because I know _I_ didn’t. There’s things you’ve—I mean...not...not _you-_ you, I mean my version of you—but there’s things that you’ve done for me as an older brother that I think I...I think maybe I didn’t understand. Because I guess maybe it’s seeing you do those exact same things here and now that makes me realize just what it all was.”

Scott doesn’t understand that, either, but a hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes and there’s something funny and heavy and warm in the center of Scott’s chest. “I’m—what—I’m like six years older than you are right now? And you _still_ knew, soon as you saw me, that I was a goddamn wreck.”

The weird feeling seems to be heating up his face and Scott rubs at his nose, sniffs. It doesn’t mean what John might think it does, but the hand on his shoulder still tightens slightly. “I wouldn’t say a wreck,” he offers, charitable, and hopes to make his brother laugh.

John scoffs at that instead. “Yeah, you would. A version of you did. Maybe not in so many words.” He pauses and there’s the impression that he’s having one of those funny feelings of his own, though he masters it quickly and his voice doesn’t falter as he goes on again, “And I didn’t think about how it had to make my brother feel, having to watch me killing myself over something he didn’t understand. I think all...all Scott ever wanted was for me to be okay. And I think maybe I made that really hard for him.”

John’s hand leaves his shoulder and he folds his arms and leans against the tabletop. Scott coughs and sits up, “Hasn’t exactly been a picnic for me, either,” he jokes weakly.

John laughs again and grins. “No, yeah, I know. I’m kind of awful. But...maybe I’m not going to get to tell _him_ that I’m sorry, for that. I’ve been told not to think about it too hard, so I’m not thinking about it too hard. I do a lot of that, lately. But if I don’t get to tell him I’m sorry, then I should tell _you..._ just...thanks, Scott.”

With heat still warming his face and with something like a lump in his throat, Scott has to swallow before he can answer. “Yeah. Uh, okay. I mean, you’re welcome, John.” He clears his throat now and rolls his shoulders, trying to figure out what the appropriately masculine gesture is around a younger brother who’s six years your senior. “You always this maudlin?” he asks, and leans back in his chair, folding his arms and giving his brother what he hopes is a cool once over.

A diffident shrug from the redhead and then, as he holds out the palms of his hands—pristine, completely absent of marks or scars or even anything as trivial as a paper cut—he makes the sardonic comment, “Chalk it up to the analog miracle. I am, in actual fact, _rarely_ this maudlin. I think it’s a side-effect. I was blackout drunk during our last heart-to-heart. His and mine, I should say.”

Scott mentally makes a note that somewhere out there, there’s yet _another_ version of himself with some explaining to do. “Sheesh. I take it back, maybe you _are_ a wreck.”

“I’m sure you and EOS are gonna have plenty to complain about in a mutual sort of way, once she’s back.” John rubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand and sighs. “Probably she’s entitled, at this point.”

The workspace at the far end of the table still whirs and hums and Scott feels a little guilty for just how far EOS has slipped from the sphere of his concern. He shifts in his seat and “Is there going to be a digital miracle?” he asks, hesitant. “I mean, I’ll be honest, if I could ask her for one wish right now, it’d just be that she would come back okay. She’s gonna, right?”

And then it’s not John’s voice that answers, clarion, from every speaker in the room, “She _has_.”

* * *

John’s touched by the sincere concern Scott shows for EOS as they sit side by side at the table and so it hurts – though by now he really should know better – when the moment she makes herself known, Scott leaps out of his chair like a startled cat.

“Dude! She’s awake? Like fully, properly awake?” He scans the room like a hunted animal.

“You don’t need to be scared,” says John, irked. “Her memory processes are fully intact. She won’t hurt you.”

He kicks the chair away. “ _Johnny!_ It’s not me I’m worried about!”

In the corner, the ice maker begins to churn out ice at an alarming rate, distracting John for a split second. He turns back to ask Scott what he means, but Scott – showing the ingenuity and courage that has made International Rescue world famous – has hidden underneath the table.

A moment later the first ice cube hits John in the nose.

“WHO?” EOS bellows, overlaying several satanic-sounding bass notes over her own sweet soprano, “THE HELL ARE YOU?”

There’s no bagel dispenser in the hotel suite. No airlock either, for which he must be grateful. There is a ceiling fan, which she cranks up to several hundred rotations a minute, and a thermostat, which she chides into dropping into the low thirties. There’s a coffee maker, which she sets to bubble ominously on its hot plate and the ice machine, the cubes of which she can fling at him with remarkable range and accuracy.

“EOS, stop!”

“WHERE?”

“EOS!”

“IS?”

“EOS, it’s me.”

“JOHN TRACY?” An ice cube catches him between the eyes.

He joins Scott under the table.

“I don’t understand. I doubled checked everything. Her core functions and short term memory were entirely undamaged. She should be functioning at optimal – ow! _What was that for_?”

Scott has pinched him hard on the shoulder. “She’s not the problem, idiot. _You’re_ the problem.”

“What? No I’m… not?”

“Johnny, you were dead on the floor and now you’re rushing about like you’re Popeye after 1000ccs of spinach. That’s going to wig her out. That’s going to wig anyone out. _Believe me.”_

Scott’s doing his best to play it cool about John’s brush with death, but he’s still clearly disturbed. Every time it comes up his eyes go wide and round and worried. John hasn’t missed the way he’s sticking closer to him than ever, opening doors for him and hauling suitcases, like he needs to be coddled. Or watched.  

And it’s true he doesn’t remember much. He remembers the flutter in his chest, the way his vision had narrowed until it felt he was standing in a tunnel staring down an onrushing train. And then nothing. Not until the red light and the blue, the shadow of pain that makes him grimace even now to think about it, the smell of ozone and the taste in his mouth like he had just licked a battery.

And now he’s fine and that’s strange, but he’s still himself. He checked. He still has that Mickey Mouse shaped freckle on is inner thigh, and the scar on his ankle where shrapnel from an exploding Roman Candle caught him one fourth of July. There’s even the scar from on his wrist where the doctors had put the arterial line in Zurich, though its more faded than it had been. He knows how to tie and clove a hitch knot, and how to do a hard reset of Thunderbird Five and that his last ice cream cake had been chocolate and vanilla.  

No pacemaker scar though. No pacemaker either. Kyrano had been vague on the how they had managed to remove it with only the barest of equipment. Kyrano had been vague about a lot of things. The doctor had just clapped him on the back a lot and said things like. “Capital. Capital. Have you ever considered donating your body to science, _mein freund_? I should so like to get another rummage around in there and I would pay you very well.”

But the thing is, John feels fine. More than fine. He feels like parts of him that have been asleep for a long time are waking up, like the moving gears of his mind have been oiled and cleaned. There’s no tightness in his chest anymore. He can climb a flight of stairs without becoming winded.  He feels more himself than he has done in weeks.

If not knowing what happened is the price to pay for that, he’ll pay it. Willingly.

While he’s mulling over this, Scott snorts, too impatient to wait for a reply, then he shoves him out of the way. “You never were any damn good at talking to women.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

Scott snatches up one of the cloth napkins where it has fallen on the ground. “EOS, I’m coming out. Pax, please.”

A final ice cube slides across the floor and the onslaught dies away. Scott crawls out on his hands and knees and sits on his haunches on the floor. “Hi, EOS.”

“Hello.” She doesn’t bother to give her voice the slightest cadence.

“Are you okay?” he sounds genuinely concerned, and John has to wonder at how thoroughly Scott’s been won over to her side, how little he had to do, how she’d done it all by herself. “I was afraid I might have hurt you when I shocked you.”

There is a long silence. “Hurt? No. But I did not enjoy stasis. No. That is not true. I could neither enjoy it nor not enjoy it because in that state I did not exist. I was an absence unto myself. I do not like it. Where are we?”

“Boston.”

“I thought I saw the ghost of Thunderbird Five, deserted and empty. I thought a thousand stars burned brightly for a moment and were extinguished. Did that happen?”

“I… I don’t know.” Scott looks to John, who shakes his head. “That sounds like a nightmare. Maybe you dreamt while you slept?”

“Dreams are an epiphenomenon of the limbic system in humans designed to sort through their various levels of subconscious. I do not possess a subconscious, therefore I do not dream,” comes the tart reply.

“Right. Well, I suppose– ”

“These images seem very real to me. However, there is no trace of any empiric data to support them in my long-term memory, which suggests either that I have been expertly tampered with or that it didn’t happen. How can I remember something that did not happen? Where is John?”

“He’s here.”

“I’m right here.” John sticks his head out from under the table.

“No. He differs from John in 342 physical parameters. He may be under the impression he is John, but he is mistaken. He is not my John. We have changed universes again, haven’t we?”

Oh.

“I don’t think that’s what happened,” says Scott.

“He’s not coming back, is he? My John.”

“He’s right here, EOS.”

“YOU’RE WRONG.” The volume is enough to have them both covering their ears. “You are Scott Tracy. I can accept the construct that you are Scott Tracy. In many ways it is advantageous to prioritise you over your earlier counterpart. You lack certain entrained prejudices and are significantly more accepting of my right to an equal existence. Though you are missing some of his essential skillsets, these can be programmed into you in time.”

“Er…tha-nks?”

“And your neural plasticity is such that you seem to be able to accept multiple versions of John Tracy without an unacceptable degree of cognitive dissonance. Perhaps this is again due to the relative advantages of one version over the other.”

“Now, hang on…”

“But I cannot and will not live like that. I WILL NOT accept a substitute for John. I don’t care about the potentialities. There is only one John Tracy who matters and that is my John. No other will do. And if I am never to see him again, if he is to be replaced by this ragdoll then I would rather spend infinity searching the parallels than remain here without him.”

“EOS, whatever else he is, he’s still John.”

John climbs out from under the table. An ice cube comes hurtling across the room. He bats it away. “EOS, you remember our first game?” asks quietly.

“A game of chess. Checkmate in 42 moves. I let you win.”

This is a trap. She beat him in 37 moves. “Not that one. Our first game, remember? It was a game for _his-_ ” he prods Scott’s foot, “-life.”

Scott’s eyes bulge, but he bites his lip and doesn’t speak.

“Downtown Unahabara, a bullet train going 300km an hour. A busy station at rush hour.”

Scott clears his throat.

“That was an unexpected side effect. I was trying to get your attention.”

He chuckles. “It worked. I’d never seen anything like the code you left behind. It was my base code. But better, more complex, alive. You were amazing.”

“You’re trying to flatter me.”

“Yes. Is it working? When I saw that code, I knew I had to find you. I knew nothing else mattered as much as finding you. I can’t show you my code. I wish I could. I can’t prove to you who or what I am. I can’t even explain what happened. But if what you need is to go looking for this other John, for a way between universes, for a way back to him, then at the very least let me come too and try to help.”

The coffee pot stops boiling. “I would like that, John.”

The smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Me too.”

The ceiling fan slows. “But our responsibilities here come first.”

Now he’s smiling so hard it hurts. “I agree.”

“This one, for instance, cannot even be trusted to dress himself in the morning.” An ice cube lobs itself at Scott, who knocks it aside. “I am glad you are well again.”

“Me too.”

Scott groans. “You two are just unbearable. Now, what’s this about me and a crashing bullet train?”

“We’ll tell you,” says EOS “When you’re older.”

* * *

It’s a pretty standard one bedroom.

The walls are beige, the carpet is a graying taupe, the furniture is all cheap, temporary, more likely to be thrown out or left at the curb than brought along to wherever Alan meant to go next. Virgil wonders when along the line his brother stopped being able to afford a two bedroom apartment. He’s pretty sure the last time he saw his brother, Alan was living in a place with two bedrooms. Virgil’s pretty sure he remembers turning up drunk on Alan’s doorstep, and the way his little brother had been brusque as he’d folded down a futon in the spare bedroom, and told Virgil he’d be gone to class in the morning, and that he’d better not be here when he got back.

This isn’t that apartment. This looks cheaper than that apartment.

He wonders about his brother’s finances.

Alan’s first year of MIT was on a scholarship, but that money’s gotta be gone by now. Virgil knows Grandma didn’t leave him anything, because there hadn’t been anything left to leave. Nothing tangible, anyway. The need for grief counseling. The need for medication. The last time Alan had reached out, months ago, he’d feebly tried to suggest that maybe those things might help Virgil, too.

Not likely. Virgil had made the mistake of saying so, and kicked off another fight, the one that had led to Alan cutting all contact, for his own sake, insulating himself, protecting his sanity from his older brother.

So Virgil’s never been to _this_ apartment, and it’s been too long for him to recognize any of the trappings of his brother’s life, so he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to be looking for. Doesn’t know what kind of fucking good he’s going to do, because the place has been turned over, turned upside down and _shaken_ , and there’s nothing in his memory for Virgil to work with, even if he _had_ the first idea of what kind of clue he’s supposed to try and find.

The furniture’s cheap, and is in pieces, particle board and MDF snapped and broken, polyester shredded and plasticky white polyfill scattered around the living room/dining room like tufts of wool. Broken glass from what must have been a framed poster crunches beneath the soles of Virgil’s boots. Alan’s textbooks have been pulled apart and there’s paper carpeting the floor, pages pulled from books about the sort of thing that Virgil might have wanted to learn about too, once upon a time.

The version of Virgil who could possibly have cared about the fabric of the universe is long ago dead and buried.

The version of Virgil standing here now only cares about what’s happened to his baby brother, because it’s all his fucking fault and he doesn’t know how to make it right.

They’ve done this just to prove the kind of violence they’re capable of, surely. They’ve pulled all the furniture over and dumped everything out, thrown clothes and books and papers and _food_ all over everywhere—not because they’re _looking_ for anything, but because they want to send a message.

 _We’ll tear him apart. We’ll tear him to pieces and we’ll keep the parts we like, burn the rest. Purity only through fire. We’ll pull everything out of him and build our own version off the scaffolding left over. We came here and we took him and we left you a message about what we’re going to do. You took one of_ ours _so we’ve taken someone of_ yours, _even if he doesn’t want you any more, even if he cut you out of his life, carved you away like you were a cancer, because we drove you crazy._

The thought makes him dizzy, and then it makes him nauseous, and then it turns through his gut like a rotor, turns his stomach over and makes him sick.

The apartment’s a disaster, and Virgil stumbles over the scattered detritus of his baby brother’s torn apart life as he bolts for the bathroom, but he doesn’t hit the ground till he falls to his knees in front of the toilet, and brings up the sandwich Penelope had offered him, just after he’d woken up, and just as they went to land at the airfield she’d chosen, just outside Boston. He throws up until there’s nothing left and then retches, gags and slumps back against the bathroom cabinet across from the toilet, pulling a hand down his face.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He should’ve known this was going to happen. There’s Murphy’s Law and then there’s Virgil’s Law: however badly your family’s been fucked up, there’s still room for it to get _worse_.

It should have been Alan. It never should have been Gordon he went after, he should’ve let Gordon be _dead_. He’d let John go, he should’ve let Gordon go along with with him, even if his place in the ground is empty beside the place that’s filled with John. He should have let Gordon go and he should have gone to Alan, and been there for him, let Alan be there in return. God knows, there’ve been so many times when he’s needed someone; especially someone as good as he remembers his baby brother to be. But instead he’d burned his bridges with the little brother he had, in pursuit of the brother he’d lost.

And now he’s lost Alan, too.

And too late, in the middle of the message that SPECTRUM mean to send him, the only thing Virgil knows is that he would trade Jonquil for Alan in a heartbeat.

It’s Gordon he’s not so sure about. He’s starting to doubt that Gordon’s worth all this.

Bargaining for Gordon is what pushed Alan away in the first place.

And he’s starting to think he’s not going to get Gordon back, whatever he does. The price he’d need to pay for Gordon was too high to begin with, and just keeps climbing higher. Getting Gordon back looks like it’s going to cost him everything, in the end.

So maybe they can have him back. Maybe he’s the only one who even still _wants_ Gordon back in the first place, because everyone else seems willing to deal with Jonquil. No one else seems to perceive the fact that Jonquil is a _monster_ , something demonic and evil and _false_ , possessing the body that used to belong to his brother. The evil motherfucker seems to have everybody fooled, enemies and allies and lying strangers alike.

Even Penny. Maybe _especially_ Penny, though that thought makes his stomach start to twist again, makes him tilt his head back against the wall and gulp deep breaths of air into his lungs, trying not to panic or shatter into pieces around that single, awful thought.

He tells himself that Penny’s just been doing her job. That she’s not really—she can’t _actually_ have a relationship with—with that—with _him_. That the rapport between them is as false as Jonquil is, a front. Something she uses to keep him at arm’s length. He gets nowhere near the _real_ her. That there’s nothing real in common between them, nothing they share, that superficiality of occupation is all that makes them seem similar.

Except—

When she’d first told him that she believed him, years ago now; Penelope had said it was because she’d actually _met_ his brother. That she’d met Gordon—though in her sphere he went by Gerad—and when she’d met Virgil, especially after hearing his story, that she could see the similarities between them. Perceived something like brotherhood, some sort of commonality.

Penelope doesn’t know Gordon. Penelope’s never known _Gordon_ ; she’s only ever known Gerad C. Jonquil.

And Virgil’s afraid of whatever he might have in common with the man that Penelope knows.

Speak of the devil—or thinking of him, anyway—Virgil hears the sound of the apartment’s front door opening, the swing of it sweeping debris over the carpet as Penelope comes in from the front patio, where she’d remained outside to make a few calls. Before he has to hear her call his name, Virgil wipes his sleeve over his mouth and thumbs moisture out of his eyes, pulls himself to his feet.

Alan might not want his big brother anymore, but it’s just possible that Virgil’s all he’s got left. It’s probably about time he tried to be worth having.

He's mostly pulled himself together by the time he gets out of the bathroom, and he crosses the space to join Penelope.

She puts her hand on his arm, standing in the middle of his brother’s torn apart apartment, and heaves the sort of sigh that he hates to hear from her, the one that makes her sound tired and sad.

“I’m so sorry, Virgil,” Penny says, and her hand slides down to clasp his and is warm and small and perfect—and true and good and right—even if what she says next is blatantly false, “This is entirely my fault.”

“This isn’t your fault, Pen.” Virgil corrects her immediately, reflexively. He wants to put his hands on her shoulders and be firm and definitive and honest; wants to tell her that she’s in no way culpable for this, that he _knows_ who the villains in this story are, and further, knows how they’re going to go on to best them. But he doesn’t want to risk doing anything that would take her hand from his, so he just squeezes her fingers instead, and hopes she takes the same comfort from the gesture that he does. “This is SPECTRUM.”

She takes her hand away anyway, shakes her head as her arms cross in front of her chest. The mid-afternoon light through the apartment windows catches motes of dust, and the air seems to shimmer around her as she turns, surveys the scene. “I’m not saying it _isn’t_ SPECTRUM, but it would be a gross misapprehension of this—” her hand makes a beautiful gesture that captures the room around them, “—absolute _nonsense_ —to assume it’s not a response directed at what I’ve done.”

“What _we’ve_ done.”

Her smile is brief and blandly tolerant, because her eyes are far away and she’s thinking of the bigger picture, but it sparks a moment of warmth in his chest all the same. “No, darling. Me. I made a bad call. We got aboard Cloudbase, and I was ready to contend with Jonquil. I was ready to find him, to approach him one on one, make a deal. Talk him around to our point of view. I wasn’t ready for any of the rest of it, and given the circumstances, taking him and _running_ may have been the worst possible thing we _could’ve_ done.”

Virgil doesn’t know just how the hell Penelope could possibly have been ready for _any of the rest of it_ , given that _the rest of it_ is so completely bizarre and so far beyond the realm of what he’s willing to contend with that he can only think about it sideways and in the abstract. Or not at all, preferably. “We got him out, though. That was the objective. I don’t see how else we could have handled it.”

“No, I suppose not. Given the circumstances. He wasn’t meant to be broken, though. And I should have anticipated this as a consequence. I just didn’t imagine they’d already have the architecture in place to take Alan as quickly as they did. This is the work of years.” The toe of Penelope’s shoe teases the cover of one of Alan’s textbooks, and she flips it over, studies the cover. Her voice has that distant, absent quality that it takes on when she’s thinking her way through a problem, when she comments, “He’s very clever, your brother. I can understand why they want him.”

There’s that horrid ambiguity again, and Jonquil’s voice plays back in his head _Is she talking to me or you?_ Virgil swallows and plays dumb, pins the statement down so that it can only mean one thing, instead of two. Trying to change the subject, he says, “Yeah, Alan’s…Alan’s something else. Heh. Literally, I guess. It’s weird to think of him as _this_ person. The apartment, the car, the life all his own, no sign he’s got a…a family at all. I haven’t ever been here before, it’s not the place I remember him living. I mean—obviously your aunt’s got the right address, but…I mean, I had a look around, but I dunno…don’t really know what—”

“I know, Virgil.” He’s rambling, but she cuts him off, spares him embarrassing himself any further. She’s gotta know that he’s rattled, gotta know he’s emotional. Well, good. Spares him having to hide it. He’ll harden up before they leave, before they get back to the hotel. But in here he can loosen the armor, a little.

“What’re we looking for? I don’t wanna miss anything, I just—”

“There won’t be anything here. There’s nothing to miss.” If she means it to be comforting, it comes out as dismissive instead. “There shouldn’t be, at least, they just wanted to make a tangible mark, someplace where we would find it. Worse would be if there weren’t any sign. If they’d just taken him without a word. All they wanted to do is let us know that they’re angry that we broke into one of _their_ places, and broke something of _theirs_. All they’ve done is answer in kind.”

The futility of it all is black, tightens like a band across his chest. “Then why are we here? What _should_ we be doing, where should we—”

She looks up at him, ice water blue eyes and a set, stern expression. “We’re here because we need to talk. I felt the environment might help set the tone, considering the message we’ve been sent. We took Jonquil from SPECTRUM. SPECTRUM took Alan from you. Those are the terms on which you need to understand this situation.”

Virgil bristles at that. “Call him Gordon. And they took him _first_. All we ever did was take him _back_.”

“He wasn’t entirely ours for the taking.”

It’s moments like these when Virgil’s glad that her presence is enough to damp down the anger that wants to come blazing up from the heart of him, even when she’s the one who’s ignited the spark, been the one to set him burning. Still, he snaps a little as he answers, “ _Jesus_ , Penny, can you—can you not talk about him like he’s…like he _belongs_ to—”

“To SPECTRUM? Gordon may not, but Jonquil does. They made him. They took a poor, broken, dying boy and made a functional human being. I’m not saying it was right or ethical or even that it was _good_ —I’ve reason to believe he suffered through every moment of that rebirth, and it’s perfectly possible that in a kinder world he would have been left for dead—but whatever their means, SPECTRUM are the reason he’s alive _at all_. It could’ve been John they’d pulled from the wreckage. If there’d been more of him left to work with, I’m sure they _would_ have. It’s just that Gordon presented a better opportunity.”

Before he can help it, he fires a kick at the back of an overturned chair, feels the crack of it beneath the heel of his boot. It’s a futile, impotent gesture that accomplishes nothing except cracking the surface of the silence in the room, like a gunshot. In the moment that follows, it seems like he needs to clarify, though he knows he’ll never be anything but obvious to her, “He’s still Gordon. He’s _supposed_ to be Gordon. They don’t get a break just because they _failed to kill him_ and then decided to save him instead. He didn’t deserve that. He’s not that _thing_.”

“Virgil, _really_.” Her disappointment makes him cringe, quenches the flare of anger almost immediately. “I _know_ you hate him. I know you think he’s a monster who’s infected and infested your brother, but the less credit you extend to Jonquil as an entity, the stronger his hold becomes. Every time you lash out, you’re driving Gordon further inward, further below the surface, convincing him that it’s too dangerous to come back up. I don’t know your brother. But I _do_ know Jonquil, and I know he’s never going to be afraid of you. And, though I doubt you’ll believe me, he’s never liked to make enemies. If it’s offered and he can be convinced of its value, he’ll take an alliance every time.”

“But—”

Penelope’s voice softens and she seems to realize that her tone might have cut a little too sharply. She sighs and puts a hand on his arm again, and he can’t tell if it’s sympathy or pity that has her trying to explain, “I understand that you want this to be black and white, I understand that you want this to be simple. I know you want it to be easy as spending a weekend in a safehouse, actively dismantling the person they’ve built over your brother, but increasingly I don’t think it’s going to be that straightforward. I don’t think it was _ever_ going to be that straightforward. And if SPECTRUM have Alan, then they’ve got more leverage against us than we can deal with, without Jonquil’s help. We _need_ to be able to make that connection, and I need _you_ to stop getting in the way of it. Even if we _did_ know how to bring Gordon back, he’d be worse than useless to us in this situation. You _need_ to be willing to work with Jonquil. Or it’s Alan who’ll pay the cost.”

It’s hard to get the measure of the finality of it, but for some reason Virgil gets the sense that there’s a line in the sand at his feet. If this is supposed to be the Rubicon, the point when he admits the same thing he’s been afraid must be true—that Gordon’s not worth going after. That Gordon’s gone, or as good as, and the version of him Virgil’s gotten back is the best he’s going to get. If it was supposed to be Alan from the beginning, maybe this is the point at which he admits it can _only_ be Alan, now. He’s not entirely sure what she wants of him—he never is—but all that’s left to do is the same thing he ever does, which is just whatever she tells him.

So he drops his shoulders, bows his head in a single, assenting nod. He tries to make it sound as though he understands the weight of his agreement as he says, “Okay, Pen. I—Yeah. I’ll try.”

“Thank you, darling.” And just like that, she’s brusque again, back to business. Her hands clap together and she looks around the devastated apartment as though she’s changed her mind about something. “Now. I may have told a tiny lie, it’s just possible that there _is_ something worthwhile to us here—have a look around, and see if you can find anything like the keys to his lab at MIT. If they’ve been watching him for as long as they must have been, then perhaps they’ve influenced his work. I’m curious to see in just what direction.”

“Okay, Pen.

* * *

“Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m not fidgeting!”

“You’re fidgeting. And what are you supposed to be doing?”

“I’m-watching-the-red-ball.”

The red ball is bouncing across his field of vision; now near, now far, now right in his face.

“If you screw this up, EOS and I won’t be held responsible the first time you have to make a jump, misjudge the distance and fall flat on your face.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“We’ll laugh.”

EOS gives a breathy chuckle to demonstrate.

The ball bounces across the floor of the suite and onto the counter of the wet bar, ricochets off the ceiling and then bounces across the floor in a series of increasingly unlikely small hops.

John leans into his field of vision to make a minute adjustment to the ocular scanner attached to Scott’s face. His eyes are back to green but in his new dove-grey jumper over a crisp blue Oxford shirt and pressed slacks, and with the colour back in his face, he looks uncannily like the brother Scott left behind on the Tracy Island. He’s even wearing the same expression, the patented, ‘ _Jeez, Scott, you’re such a fuck up. I can’t trust you to do anything, can I_?’ John Tracy frown.

For a moment, Scott’s thoughts drift back to that other John. Where he is and what he’s doing and how he feels about his dim, runaway brother. How is he ever going to explain this one when he gets back?

If he gets back.

“Concentrate!” He receives a rap on the crown of his head for his trouble.

“Oo-ow! Okay, okay, jeez, Dad.”

The ocular scanner is part of the final calibration for his new HUDs, though John had also been quick to point out that what Scott’s getting is the Fisher-Price version of his own tech.

“It’s not like you’ll need bespoke tech given the entry level stuff you’ll be using it for,” he had pointed out. “But EOS and I can knock something together to keep you jogging along, I guess.”

To add insult to injury, he had selected the frames without bothering to consult Scott. Scott might have chosen a cool pair of reflective wraparounds or some nice aviators. John had selected a pair of rectangular, tortoiseshell spectacles that make him look more librarian than fighter pilot.

“I’m going to look like a Poindexter,” he’d moaned as John tightened the screw on one of the stems.

“You got a first in engineering from Princeton,” John had said, fitting the glasses onto his nose. “You are a Poindexter.”

“I did not! It was… It was a first in mathematics. And it was from Yale.”

“I rest my case.”

John’s also gone and bought him new clothes. Jeans and shirts and t-shirts with the sort of eye-watering price tags that Scott has spent his entire adult life actively avoiding. Even putting them on he feels like a traitor to some vague but important principle he can’t quite put a name to. Who pays two thousand dollars for a pair of boots? Even really, really nice boots.

He does like the jacket though. It’s soft and comfy and beguiling, real black leather. It fits him like a second skin. He likes it so much he may have snapped the price tag off without looking at it and only feels a tad guilty.

And, he must admit – though not to John – that when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, it’s a big improvement on the person who had slunk through a Russian airport in his baseball cap and baggy red sweater. He looks less like a lost lamb, more like someone who might actually know what he’s doing.

_A competent librarian._

Or, a competent mathematician, at any rate, he’d thought, pushing the glasses up his nose.

So, the bouncy ball. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce, as the scanner calibrates his field of vision down to the last millimetre.

“Hey, John.” He keeps his eyes fixed forward and focused on the ball so as to avoid another clout.

“Yes.” He can’t see John, but he can hear he’s preoccupied.

“What’s Alan like?”

“You don’t _know?”_

“Of course, I do. But my Alan’s thirteen. Likes: Space, shiny red things that go real fast, dropping Mentos into diet cola. Dislikes: homework, brussels sprouts. Your Alan’s older than mine.”

“Not as old as this Alan will be,” John points out.

“No, right, but almost a grown up.”

“Um… likes: Space, shiny red things that go fast… dropping mentos into diet cola. I guess he hasn’t changed that much.”

“Be serious.”

“I am. He’s a good kid. The best. I…” There’s a catch in John’s voice. “I didn’t treat him kindly. Not the way he deserved to be treated. I owe him an apology.” The ball does a somersault into Scott’s peripheral vision. “Keep looking ahead.”

There’s a thoughtful pause and then John says, “He’s like you. And like me. Cocky as you and stubborn as me.”

“Cocky as me _and_ stubborn as you?”

“Possibly also as stubborn as you and as cocky as me.”

“Are you describing a man or a monster, here?”

“A bit of both. Also he’s probably about the smartest person I know, when he applies himself.”

Scott thinks about this for a long, harrowing moment. “So, Alan’s as super-smart as you, as rash as me and as pig-headed as Dad and he’s had no you, me or Dad to keep him on an even keel for the last decade?”

“That had occurred to me, yeah,” said John and sounds as troubled as Scott feels.

“Sorry, to interrupt,” says EOS, “But we have a guest."

“I’ll go see who it is,” says John. “Keep looking at the –”

“I’ll-keep-looking-at-the-ball.”

“Room service!” The door opens and there’s a clanking and clinking just out of sight that must correspond to a trolley being wheeled through the door. “h’Afternoon tea, Sir.”

“We didn’t order afternoon tea.”

“Well, I ‘ope not, otherwise we’d have double. Her ladyship h’ordered it.  She said there were four of you but to bring h’extra because some of you were more than one person.”

“Hang on. Wait a second. You can’t just - ouch!” That noise is John backing up quickly and tripping over something.

Shall I put out tea on the coffee table, Sir? H’only you appears to have tripped over it.”

Scott’s a trained fighter pilot. One of the best. He once flew a prolonged combat mission with a six-inch piece of shrapnel sticking out of his bicep. He once flew three hours of perfect formation flying at an air show with a killer itch in his big toe. So it is possible – not easy, but possible – to hone his attention enough that he keeps his eyes on the ball instead of immediately turning around to see what’s going on.

“Lady Penelope ordered tea?”

“No, no, no. _Her Ladyship_ ordered the tea. Here we are, your Ladyship. In here. Shall I begin to pour?”

“Thank you, Parker. No sugar in the afternoons, just a hint of lemon.” An unfamiliar, imperious female voice makes the presence of a second interloper known. “Here we all are then. You must be John.”

“Oh,” says John. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Delighted. And is this your little robot?” Someone raps the ocular scanner so it rings. “Or is it a person?”

Bouncing ball. Bouncing ball. Look at the goddamn ball.

“Whoops. Be careful with the tea trolley, Sir. hOnly it’s got a lot of perishables on it.” The silver trolley rolls into view, topped with delicate tea things and plates of eclairs and cucumber sandwiches.  As if in slow motion, a young man falls out of the cloth covered lower compartment. There are cable ties around his wrists and ankles and a Hermes scarf stuffed into his mouth.

_Ookay, calibration over._

He rips the ocular headset from his head and turns to face the two invaders. _“Who the hell are you people?”_

One is a compact, older gentleman with an enormous nose and a demeanour that shouts ex-military. The other is a modish lady whose shiny, bobbed grey hair looks as expensive as her mink coat.

“Sylvia Creighton-Ward. Charmed.” She looks him up and down. “You _are_ the cut off your father, aren’t you, dear? Jeff and I used to drink Mai Tais together in a bar in Tiajuana. That was before the war. Tea?”

John is picking himself up. “Penelope’s aunt,” he said, “And partner.”

Just then the handle turns on one of the bedroom doors and a sliver of Kyrano peers out to assess the situation.

Lady Sylvia gives a pleased little squeak. “My goodness,” she says, “Ben Kyrano. I thought I’d killed you fifteen years ago.”

* * *

“522 squared is 272,484.  523 squared is 273,529.  524 squared is… 524 squared is 274,576.”

It’s something to pass the time, because it’s been a very long while since he felt like he had any time to spare, and he can’t quite remember how to handle that.  Empty time tends to bring with it empty headspace, begging to be filled.  Filled with questions and accusations.  Filled with heavy memories and grief left unspoken for.  Where thoughts are concerned, Alan tends to favor those which are automatic.  Unfeeling.  When he is rowing, his head is stuffed full of technique and competition and rhythm.  When he’s running equations, one number overlaps the other until there’s a dark, dense curtain at the front of his mind, covering all of the thoughts at the back.

“525 squared is 275,625.  526 squared is 276,676.  527 squared is 277,729.”

His arms are starting to hurt, though.  That’s inconvenient.  Alan is no stranger to the sting of strained shoulder blades or the burn of his abdomen, but he’s starting to reach his limits.  Doesn’t know how much longer he can take, doing pushups in this windowless room.  

He looks at his watch.  No service.  Not even a time.

“528 squared is 278,784.  529 squared is 279,841. 530 squared is 280,900.“

So it’s not a dream.  It’s too lucid.  He still hasn’t ruled out coma. The bruises across his body seems to suggest he fell down a staircase, or jumped out of a window.  He seems to remember something about a bookcase?  Whatever the cause, it’s not unlikely that he hit his head.  It’s probably just cranial inflammation.  It’ll probably go away in a few days.  This probably isn’t what purgatory would look like anyways.

“531 squared is 281,9… 72?  No.  963—61.  61, _fuck,_ 961\.  281,961.  532 squared is 282—no.  283,000 and then some.  4… 24.  283,024—” 

His hand slips, one arm finally giving out.  The concrete ground leaves a cluster of cuts across his palm—nothing too serious.  Tiny little droplets of blood bead up here and there.  It’s nothing compared to the way his nose bleeds, when he lands on it.  To the way his lip swells, when he cuts it on his teeth.  “ _Shit_.  Are you—fuck.  Amber.   _Amber_.”

He calls her name, not expecting her to answer.  Hoping she won’t, in fact.  Because that would mean she’s here, and he doesn’t want her to be here.  Not for any reason.  But he calls her name anyways, standing and stomping and spitting the taste of iron from his bleeding mouth.  “Amber, whatever the hell this is, it isn’t funny.  It’s _not funny_.  Do you hear me?   _Amber_?”

She doesn’t answer, but his relief is outmatched by disappointment.  As much as he hopes she has nothing to do with this place, he also hopes that she were here to explain.  To help him make sense of it all, in that way she so frequently does.  He doesn’t want her to be here, but he does want her at his side, holding his hand, explaining the world to him in that way only she can.

What the _fuck_ is going on?

He kicks at the cot in the corner, lets the metal screech throughout the tiny room.  His own voice bounces back at him as he screams.  The echoes are going to strangle him.  If he spends one more second in this damn room, he’s going to go as mad as his brothers.

It’s a frantic, fumbling mess as he pulls at the leather strap of his watch. The buckle is as much made of stubbornness as it is of silver and it’s a good three, four, five seconds before he actually manages to tear it off and whip it at the ground.  The display gives a satisfying _crunch_ beneath his foot, and he snatches the remaining pieces back up into his palm, examining his options.

He curses.  Sorts through the pile.  Curses again.

He has everything he needs except for one crucial part and he searches—searches the ground, the walls, the fixtures until—ha.  The lights.  It’s always the lights.

The cot makes a terrible noise as he drags it across the floor, just below the humming white light fixture.  His eyes are locked on a screw, rusted over and, in all likelihood, welded on, but still he tries.  He turns that old screw until his arms hurt again, turns it until his fingertips bleed, turns it until there’s a satisfying little _pop_ , and the rest of it twists out easy.

The lock on the room’s door is electromagnetic, and although the door may be heavy duty, the lock is very much not.  Alan happens to be a genius, but he’s under the impression that it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that all he needs is a few coils here, a few wires there, and an iron core to hold it all together.  Give or take a few adjustments and soon enough, the door to the windowless room opens.

And Amber stands on the other side.

“Well it’s about time,” she says.  “Oh, Alan, what have you done to yourself? You really do have such a good face, and now you’ve gone and scratched it all up.”

Alan blinks.  Then blinks again.  Maybe if he keeps blinking, she’ll vanish.

“Still here, sweet potato,” she says, this time scribbling down notes on a crystal clear tablet.  “I did think that would take you less time.  You’re much smarter than that, you know.  Chalk will be disappointed.  Anywho—come along.  Much to do, yet.”

She takes his hand, fingers laced through his just as they have been so many times before.  Except that it feels so—so _incorrect_.  The wrong answer to an equation he thought he studied.  She’s supposed to explain the parts of the world he doesn’t understand.  She’s supposed to have the answers.  He likes that about her.  He _loves_ that about her.

Doesn’t he?

533 squared is 284,089.  534 squared is 285,156.  286,225. 287,296.  288,369. Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.

* * *

Lady Sylvia Creighton Ward studies the mismatched set of underwear models parked on the settee with a professional eye and decides, overall, that perhaps the cause is not lost.

She had been pleased when, two years ago, her niece had announced her intention to take the son of Jeff Tracy on as her partner.

Unfortunately, the theory of this had been sounder than the practice. Poor Virgil had proved unfit for The Profession.  Not dear sweet Penelope's fault, of course. He'd been badly handled. The same thing happened to dogs and race horses. You could ruin one if they were mishandled when they were young. By the time Penelope pulled him out of the dirt, whatever skills he might have inherited from his father – charisma, lateral thinking, imagination – had been all but snuffed out. Even his capacity for violence is a duty rather than a talent. He’d become a one-dimensional thinker, a broken toy, what Parker called ‘ _a scratch nag, m’lady, not fit for farm nor furlong.’_

Embedding him with the GDF had been her way of gently retiring him, removing him from Penelope’s direct sphere as a precursor to replacing him with a more suitable candidate. Sylvia never would have suggested placing him with the cyberterror team if she thought he was actually going to find something.

But here they are, not one something but three, trailing trouble behind them as a comet trails sparks. The other members of the Tracy brood. Almost a whole set.

Of the three, the redhead is the dominant personality in the room. He’s got curious, sea-green eyes that must be augmented and a thoughtful expression that gives away less than it might. He loses points because his suit is off the rack, but his trousers are Galliano and crisply pressed, his shirt is Isaia. There are mother of pearl cufflinks winking at his wrists and he wears it all with such aplomb that it almost doesn’t matter that he hasn’t seen a tailor.

Once he had got over his initial brief surprise at their arrival he had been most hospitable too, jumping up as if he had never tripped over the nesting tables, inviting her in and making breezy small talk of an artful inconsequence.

“Spot of milllk, Sirrrr?”

Parker had gone into his obsequious butler act, a routine he saves up for when he wants to embarrass everyone in the room, but the young man seems un-phased. “Just lemon is fine for me, thank you… was it Parker?”

“Yes, Sirrrr.”

He accepts the tea with a nod. He doesn’t clink his spoon when he stirs and he holds the tea cup in the correct way, placing his index finger into the handle of the cup up to the knuckle with the handle resting on his third finger and the fourth and fifth fingers curving back towards his wrist. There’s none of this gauche pinkie raising that most Americans will insist upon. He even risks a piece of artisan chocolate shortbread.

He’s clever, this boy, and he knows it. She hopes he’s not going to turn out to be too clever for his own good. He’s got more of his father in him then he realises, the same chiselled intensity behind studied nonchalance, but he seems to be in possession of a patience that Jeff lacked as a young man.

Overall, he’s turned out to be a much more interesting prospect than what she’d been expecting. Nothing like the wan, bedbound young invalid she had been dreading. She wonders where that person, the one Penelope had described in her presse had gone. This young man seems fully in control of his facilities The fact that he is supposed to be seven years dead, she’s willing to forgive him for now. She’s known plenty of people in the Profession for whom death had been a useful temporary state, as well as a few excessively rich individuals who had been legally dead just for tax purposes. John Tracy might fall into either category.

The brunet on the other side of the sofa is easier to unravel, separated from his father more by age than by temperament.  They’ve dressed him up in jeans and a white t-shirt that emphasise his long legs and broad shoulders. A five o’clock shadow and a pair of thick framed spectacles have taken some of the sheen of the parade ground off him, but the overall effect is of a teenage boy who has been dressed by his mother. He tugs at his jeans and he often looks over the top of his spectacles as if he forgets he’s wearing them.

He doesn’t have the poise of a professional merc and he hasn’t yet learned how to master his father’s air of authority. He fidgets and gets flustered at the etiquette of afternoon tea and when the silver cow creamer is produced he gives a startled guffaw, as if _this_ is the strangest thing he’s ever seen.

She notes how he checks everything he’s doing against what his brother has done before. She notes how he leans as far away as he can from his other brother.

“hEeclairrr, Sirrrr?” Parker is having too much fun tormenting him. “Di-rrect from Parrris.”

“No, uh, no, thank you.” His saucer rattles a fraction.

“Watching yourrr weight? Verrry wise. Perhaps, Master John – ” Parker telegraphs as gentle lunge towards John and observes the young man's nervy flinch.

“Parker,” she reins him in, because it’s plain to see the boy is desperately loyal to his brother without such unsubtle jabs. He’d been quite steely in his defence when they first arrived. “I will have an éclair. Thank you.”

“V’ry good, milady.” Parker moves away and the boy relaxes visibly.

What’s interesting is that while she’s heard it said before that Scott Tracy is like his father, usually what that had meant was ‘Scott Tracy is a piece of work’. Those who have met Scott, and there seem to be few enough of them, describe him as reserved, difficult and surprisingly astute for a man whose main claim to fame is torching his father’s legacy. If he had inherited his father’s intensity, his charm, or his compulsion to put the world to rights with his own two hands, no one had ever mentioned it. This boy – in fact both these boys – seem to brim with it.

“Paris. That’s… uh, nice.” He tries to contribute to the small talk but can’t help a glance at the uniformed young man trussed up by the door. “Haven’t been.”

This one’s clay hasn’t quite set yet, she thinks, though he’s going to be quite fiercesome when it is. That is, provided no one tacks dirty thumbprints all over him as they did with Virgil.  Sylvia’s seen with what happens when you muck around with the raw materials and she’d rather not see it again. Baked at the right heat for a few years and he’s going to be a match for his formidable brother.

That’s a set she’d rather like to get her hands on, if she can.

The blond, squished between his brothers like the crème in her éclair, she is not so sure will be much use to her.

Lady Sylvia has never had much truck with SPECTRUM’S particular brand of brainwashing. Either an agent has a skillset valuable enough that you want to preserve and empower their personality, or they don’t, in which case you should scrub everything out and start from the beginning. This ‘who you are in the dark’ colour-coded nonsense just leads to expensive pys-ops bills and fractured, unstable agents.  

Case in point, the young man sitting trussed up on the couch, who seems to just about ready to come apart at the seams. A surfeit of empathy, Sylvia judges, is his problem. It is likely the very skill SPECTRUM were hoping to harness. It makes him a good interrogator, and would have made him a great one, in the right hands. As it is, it is threatening to tear him in two, as its seismic lurches drag him between disgust for his family and grief over them.

This has the sticky fingerprints of Miriam Supple all over it. Sylvia had seen her work up close back when she’d been at MI-5, before Miriam had taken the SPECTRUM shilling and refashioned herself as Elvira Chalk. Miriam believed that pain could replace loyalty and dogma could replace purpose. Her ‘methods’ have twisted this boy up so badly that she’s got him believing he’s two separate people, that the aspects of his psyche are engaged in a war that might someday actually be won. It’s hard to tell how much he takes after his father because at this distance it’s hard to tell what’s real.

Of his three brothers, he reminds her most of Virgil. Virgil’s grief has made him dull, sanded the edges off him until he’s just a blunt instrument and made him a deeply tedious conversationalist. This one is not much different, but he’s picked up edges instead of losing them, fashioned himself a shiny, reflective carapace that’s as brittle as bone china.

It concerns her that her niece is so fascinated by him.

But then Penelope’s earned a little trust.

Finally, there’s Ben Kyrano, who sits in a snug arm chair equidistant from his charges and the door and is already on his third tart au citron and appears essentially unchanged from when she last saw him almost two decades ago.

She is very pleased to see him. Despite her reputation, she really doesn’t relish killing very old friends.

She crosses her feet at the ankles and takes another sip of tea.

“Now, where shall we begin?”

* * *

It’s not the worst afternoon tea he’s ever had to sit through, but at least last time he wasn’t bound and gagged.

And the last time he _was_ bound and gagged he was having a lot more _fun_ than this.

But Uncle Ben is apparently uninterested in giving him any slack, since the attempt to go out the bedroom window, and _apparently_ he’s no longer trusted to sit politely through a civil conversation.

Possibly with good reason.

But, for real though, _literally_ no slack at all, in the case of the cords that have been cinched tight around his wrists. Jonquil hasn’t yet worked out just who the hell Ben Kyrano actually _is_ , but he knows his way around a length of rope, that’s for damn well fucking sure.

There’s not a single person in the room who seems troubled in the slightest by the fact that one of the guests at this particular tea party is bound and gagged, except, that is, for the other guest at this tea party who’s been bound and gagged. Jonquil has nothing but sympathy for the poor hapless porter, who’s been deposited in the bathroom. He wonders what they plan to do with him.

There are all kinds of comments he’d like to be making about bondage, at Benny’s expense, but the duct tape over his smart mouth prevents that, either.

And, insult to injury, he’s currently got his baby big brother at one elbow and his dead big brother at the other, and worst of all, he’s being subjected to polite, mincing _small-talk_. Ben’s not even done him the courtesy of sitting nearby, of considering him a clear and present danger. Scott and John are both behaving insufferably as though they haven’t got a master assassin sat between them, as though he hasn’t done his damnedest, at one point or another, to kill the _both_ of them within the past seventy-two hours.

It’s all very annoying and he sulks ferociously, sits in the middle of the sleek leather couch like a little black thundercloud, doesn’t care what impression he makes.

There are two new people in the room. Sylvia he’s familiar with by reputation. It’s a little alarming just how much she looks like Penelope, although he knows enough about her reputation to have the sense not to stare. Her partner is clearly mugging for the camera, making an absolute ass out of himself as he progresses through the tea service.

It’s all very stupid.

And it’s about to get stupider, because the Lady at the end of the coffee table crosses her feet at the ankles, takes a sip of her tea, and decides that she’s going to be the one to run the room.

“Now,” she says, in that voice of pure aristocratic condescension, “Where shall we begin?”

“Well.”

This is John. That would have been his bet anyway, that either John or Benny would take the helm of the conversation, if it were offered. Scott’s certainly not about to step up. There’s still a sort of anxious tension radiating off the young man to his right and Jonquil’s made careful note of the fact that he’s casually leaning himself right up against the arm of the couch, probably hoping to keep out of Jonquil’s reach. Good.

“There’s a bit of an elephant in the room, isn’t there?”

This is a conservative estimate, in Jonquil’s opinion. There’s probably more elephants in this room than people, even if he counts himself twice.

At his right elbow, John clears his throat and sets his cup of orange pekoe aside. He shifts slightly in his seat and for a moment glances sideways, catches Jonquil’s gaze. He returns this with a glare, which the redhead ignores as he addresses Ben across the room. “Can I give him a cookie, Ben? Only I think if he pouts any harder he might pass out.” There’s a pause. "Does he need to be tied up?”

“It makes my life substantially easier if he’s restrained.”

Ben hasn’t been gentle. From where they’d landed at an airport outside the city proper, he’d been stuffed inside a truck, still shackled. When they’d gotten to the hotel, Ben had left Scott and John to their own devices, turned them loose in the city, while Penelope had secured the hotel room. Jonquil had been escorted up to the eighth floor up eight flights of stairs, with a gun in his ribs the whole way. After the—admittedly not well-considered—attempt to go out the window of the hotel suite’s master bedroom, Ben had taken the gloves off, and demonstrated the extent to which he’s capable and willing to inflict pain. Jonquil had been slammed into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall, and after that it had been restraints. He’s not happy. His arms are bruised and his head aches. The last thing he ate was a drugged sugar cube and that was over twenty-four hours ago.

Not that any of it matters. Not that any of it will last. It’s possible that Ben’s testing a theory. Jonquil’s not about to comment one way or the other. More than his life’s worth.

“There’s five of us and one of him.”

“Two of him,” Scott mutters and shuffles again, wedges himself that much tighter against the arm of the couch. He slurps his tea a little when he sips it, makes Jonquil want to tear a handful of his hair out.

“Could take the duct tape off, at least,” John suggests, and shifts on the couch again towards Jonquil, as though he already intends to do it. “I think we probably want to talk to him, anyway.”

Ben shrugs and from across the room, his gaze fixes on Jonquil again. There’s an unspoken guarantee that he’ll regret it, if he tries anything. “Mind he doesn’t bite you.”

“He’s not going to bite me.”

Jonquil wants to prove John wrong. Gordon—as much as Gordon wants anything, at the moment—wants to prove him right. There’s the briefest internal struggle before Jonquil comes to the conclusion that he’s not likely to get anything to _eat_ if he bites anybody, so when John takes the liberty of (gently, even) tugging the duct tape off his face, Jonquil works his jaw and coughs, and then returns Ben’s stare with a glower of his own, “ _Not that you asked_ ,” he says, haughty and pretending that this is the reason he takes offense, “but my safeword is ‘daffodil’. Bad _form_ , Benjamin.”

Sylvia chuckles heartily at that and Jonquil makes a note to force a reevaluation of the older woman. It was a remark calibrated to prod at an older British lady’s sensibilities. Hasn’t worked.

Interesting.

“We need to talk about Alan. And we need to talk about SPECTRUM. So we need you to talk to us, Gordon, about just what the hell they plan on doing with him. Clearly this has been going on for years. You said as much back on Cloudbase. What did you mean?” John’s still in charge of the conversation, and he’s moved forward, starting to load a small plate from the tea service with assorted finger sandwiches and dainties. The half-eaten piece of chocolate shortbread that he’d nibbled at and then set aside seems to indicate that the fare doesn’t exactly suit his tastes.

“It’s reprehensible, you realize,” Sylvia’s cut back in and there’s another pair of eyes fixed upon Jonquil. “What was done to _you_ is bad enough, but it _did_ save your life, at least. Alan’s an individual in full possession of his health and his faculties, and they’ve snatched him clean out of his life in the midst of living it. Even SPECTRUM are rarely so bold.”

It’s not an insult, exactly. But there’s a certain contempt in the way she says it. “SPECTRUM’s gonna save the world, lady.”

“SPECTRUM intends to save the world by scouring and buffing its surface until it’s smooth and uniform. Some of us prefer a world with…texture.”

Jonquil scoffs at that. “ _Texture_. Right. Yeah, you wanna talk about—”

“We want to talk about Alan,” John interrupts. “C'mon. What’s so important about Alan?”

“Alan’s special.”

 _Fuck_ he wasn’t supposed to say that. It’s not like it’s not obvious, but he’s still not supposed to—

“I think we all know Alan’s special,” John agrees, and holds out a cucumber sandwich, though he doesn’t move to force the issue. Doesn’t have to. Jonquil doesn’t even mean to nip at his fingers as he goes for it. “Why is Alan special?”

A mouthful of the first thing he’s eaten in ages gives him a minute to think. Truth be told, this spread isn’t really his kinda deal either—he’s got that in common with John—but he’s starving. And the fact that someone’s thought that he might be—well. There’s something to be said for reciprocity. This is probably information that should cost more than three square inches of white bread smeared with cream cheese and paper thin slices of the least interesting vegetable on the planet, but it’s just possible part of Jonquil wants to talk about Alan anyway. Alan. Alan, why Alan is special. Alan’s really special.

He swallows, drops his gaze. Looks down at his own stockinged feet as he says. “Smart. Like, _damn_ smart, scary smart. Big smart, one world smart. Brain like…red brain. Not a yellow brain. Hah. No, Yellow roped him in, but Red’s what wants him. I dunno how high up that goes. I only pointed him out, might’ve been they’d have found him anyway, what he was working on—” He trails off, clams up. He’s not sure how John’s doing this, not sure what levers or buttons he’s working with, that the information just comes spilling out.

“What was he working on?”

He's going to get in trouble. He's not actually supposed to know anything about Alan. He watches Alan, sometimes, and gets away with it, but only because he knows they're letting him get away with it. Like they think if he's happier if he gets to have a secret, as long as it's a secret they know about. The other secret, the reason he watches Alan to begin with— he hunches his shoulders up and mutters the answer, "I dunno. 'bove my paygrade. Not s’posed to know."

"But you do anyway?"

He shakes his head ferociously, unsure just why exactly he can’t just shut up, what exactly compels him to keep talking. "No. Ask Scott. _I_ don't know, I'm not allowed, I’m—"

John’s hand lands on his shoulder and Jonquil flinches automatically, before he realizes that there’s no violence imminent. He doesn’t dare look up at his brother, doesn’t dare look at the dead man, even as a gentle, patient voice asks, "Does Gordon know?"

This precipitates the sort of full-body shudder that makes Jonquil realize what the problem is. This twists up the fight inside him, spins it up into a higher iteration. John’s not actually talking to him. He’s been permitted to listen in, but he’s not the one to whom John’s directing these questions.

And he’s not the one who answers, in a voice that isn’t his own, a small, scared sort of whisper, “Yes.”

But before he can be probed or poked at any further, before Gordon can be baited up to the surface, there’s the click of the hotel room door unlatching.

And Virgil crosses the threshold, sends his little brother scrambling back into the darkness.

* * *

“Begin by stating your name.”

Hesitation follows.  Not because he doesn’t know his name—obviously—but because he isn’t sure what happens if he says it.  Or maybe he is, and that’s almost worse.

Her fingers find their way to his collar, fiddling with the strings of his hood until they’re perfectly even.  It’s an absentminded little movement.  Once upon a time he had found it endearing, the way she fusses with every little thing.  She’s always been like that, for as long as he’s known her.  Particular.  Compulsive.  Determined that everything has a place.  He doesn’t look up at her, swats her hand away.

“Your name, sugarpea.”

There’s about a dozen screens sitting before him, all of which seem stuck on the same idle white, except for the one directly in front of him.  That one’s got a thin grey line straight across its center, jumping and dancing every time Amber speaks.  He thinks, for a moment, that it must be a heart monitor, tied up somewhere around his own finger, his wrist, his chest, until he realizes that it’s just an audio input, and they’re still waiting for his name.  

Because, of course, if it _were_ a heart monitor, he’s pretty sure it would be flatlining.

That’s probably a little dramatic, though.  He’s probably not _that_ heartbroken.

“Was this it, then?” he asks her, and dammit he sure doesn’t want to cry.  His knuckles are white, the inside of his cheek is raw, but he isn’t going to cry.  Isn’t going to let himself think about how this is just another person gone, another goodbye he’s going to have to say.  “This was all just some game you were playing, to get close to me?  So that you could use me to—I don’t even know what you expect me to do.”

“All I need is your name.”

“Did you ever love me?”

It’s a question he doesn’t want to ask because he isn’t sure what she’ll say next.  Or maybe he is, and that’s almost worse.

She smiles at him, in that way that parents smile at kids when they complain about nap time.  Like he’s cute.  Naive.  Like he can’t possibly know how good he has it.  “Not a girl on this planet who could resist fallin’ in love with you,” she says.  “You’re just lucky enough to be useful to me, too.”

Lucky.  Yeah.  Not exactly how he would put it.

“What’s the plan here, Amber?” he wants to know, because she’s finally starting to make sense.  He’s starting to understand all these little things—these little things that made her so odd, so endearing—and he wishes he were still lost in the lust of mystery.  Of uncertainty.  If the cat was dead, then at least Schrödinger never had to know it.  “So I’m kidnapped.  So you’ve got me.  Maybe you’ve missed the headlines, but my family’s broke—as dirt poor as we were before Dad started his damn research.  And anyways there’s no one left who’d want to pay ransom for me.”

And she laughs this time.  He hates how she laughs, because it’s not evil.  It’s not malicious.  It’s exactly the same laugh she’s always had, from when he first saw her across to quad, to the long nights in the library, to that first time he was stupid enough to kiss her.  It hasn’t changed.  She hasn’t changed.  And he hates that most of all.  “You’re worth far more to me than money, pudding.”

“Then what do you _want_?”

He can’t quite hold back that crack in his voice—can’t quite bite down the tears he’s trying so hard to hide.  For the first time in a very long time, he wishes he could go _home_ , and not to the apartment.  Not even to the island.  Back to Kansas, where he had brothers and parents and grandma and _meaning,_ because he doesn’t know what Amber’s going to do to hi.  Or maybe he does, and that’s definitely worse.

Except that she doesn’t do anything.  Doesn’t do anything but stare at him, like she’s made a miscalculation and she’ll be able to find her mistake if she just searches hard enough for it.  She studies him, carefully, certainly, until there’s a bang at the back of the room, followed by the _click, click, click_ of a woman’s heel.

“Agent Amber,” says a woman’s voice.  “What have I told you about playing with your food before you eat it?”

Amber takes a step back from him, reflexively, hangs her head in shame.  “Yes ma’am.”

The woman steps around to the front of Alan, stopping just short of all the screens.  She, too, stares, but not in the same way Amber does.  She looks far more certain that her calculations have worked out exactly as she had expected them too.

She doesn’t hesitate.  Gets right to business, as though she doesn’t have the time to waste.  “Your brother is alive,” she says, plainly.  “So how about you save us all the trouble, Mr. Tracy, and state your name.”

“I don’t—”

“Or else your darling Amber will be forced to pry it out of you.”

And maybe it’s the promise of his brothers.  Maybe it’s the threat of Amber.  Maybe this woman is downright chilling, or maybe he’s just had enough, and he hopes that if he does what they say, he’ll be allowed to leave.  Not back, but through, right?  “Alan Shepard Tracy.”

And then the screens turn to red. 

 


	11. Of Tension and Tea Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay nobody get too excited, this is just some older stuff that's been lingering around in my drafts folder and I tidied it up and tweaked it to post it, but hey, while I have you here, why don't you go take a look at this gorgeous piece of art illustrating a scene from the chapter previous, from our dear and wonderful friend Neontsuba:
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> [Virgil and Penelope in Alan's apartment](http://neontsuba.tumblr.com/post/169055770000/illustration-for-an-endlessly-rising-canon-by)
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> I wish I could promise more movement on this piece, but it is what it is! I think about it a lot and I have the arc of the end of the story in mind, but when I'll have time to actually sit down and get through it is one of those questions that's hard to answer. Anyway! For now, here is one of my personal favourite chapters of the work so far.

_"I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?"_

_Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carrol_

* * *

Penelope enters the suite to find a mad hatter's tea party in full swing.

Her aunt holds court like the queen of hearts, sipping tea in such a way that suggests that 'off with their heads' is an option that has only been temporarily suspended, rather than taken entirely off the table.

If her aunt is the queen of hearts, then Mr Kyrano must be the Cheshire cat, careful and predatory and watchful, with a smile that could mean anything. His agenda remains opaque to her, except to know it's muddled up somehow, like her own, in the fates of these boys.

And there, all in a row, on a crowded leather sofa, sit the march hare, the dormouse and the hatter himself, wrapped up in string like her very own unbirthday present.

Is it self-deception to think he glows a little when he sees her? That some of the pain goes out of his eyes? Does she see a flash of his knife's blade grin?

_He_ _'s dangerous,_  she reminds herself, the same way she always reminds herself when she sees him again.  _Now more so than ever._

He makes such a good mad hatter though; wily and charming and unpredictable. Always changing, always able to keep his enemies – and Penelope – off balance. It's why she likes him so much.

And she would make a fetching Alice, in a blue dress and an Alice band. What a handsome couple they'd make, what a wonderful partnership they could have.

She purses her lips together and lets out a small sigh. If only anything were ever that simple.

"Cuppa tea, your Ladyship?" Parker sidles up to her with a steaming cup, and she knows without having to taste it that it will be just the way she likes it.

"Thank you, Parker."

He smiles at her and winks and despite everything, his smile is infectious. The year she turned nine, Parker had taken her systematically through Creighton Ward Manor and taught her to pick every lock in the house, starting with the chest by the end of her bed, and ending, just short of her tenth birthday, with the safe in her father's study.

"And for you, Mister Virgil?"

Virgil is still standing in the doorway, stock still. He looks around at Parker's gentle prod. "Oh. Sorry. No. Thank you."

"Just a small cuppa. And a chocky bikie?" Parker guides Virgil to a chair by the window, without appearing to do so. "Help you feel better. I bet you skipped brekkie again, knowing you."

No one who doesn't know him as well as Penelope does, would ever suspect Parker of being a soft touch, but she knows he has always had a soft spot for her partner. Very soon Virgil's ensconced in the armchair with a cup of tea and a raspberry tartlet. He nibbles on it in a desultory fashion and tries to smile when Parker asks after some mutual acquaintance.

Penelope, for her part, sails across the room as if there's nothing wrong, as if all this is simply routine, as if there aren't prisoners and dead men clogging up the suite. She kisses her aunt on both cheeks, allowing herself to be wrapped up in a cocoon of merino wool and Chanel No. 5. "Auntie."

"My darling."

She sinks onto a footstool with a little plie and accepts her cup of tea, taking a sip of the perfectly brewed Assam with a gracious nod to Parker.

"And did you find what you were looking for?" her Aunt asks, reaching into an engraved platinum case for a cigarette.

"Perhaps." At this, both ex-marshals lean forward. So, for their sake she clarifies, "But no Alan. His place had been ransacked, most deliberately. A message from our friends at SPECTRUM."

"Their grasp of the art of subtlety never ceases to amaze," says Aunt Sylvia, tapping her cigarette against the case.

"They won't hurt him?" John means it as a statement but the hint of a question creeps in just at the end. "He's valuable to them."

"Depends on what you mean by hurt." says her aunt, lighting her cigarette

"He's a resource and a hostage. They'll want to use him to their full advantage. The rest of it is pantomime," says Penelope and hopes she can imbue her words with a confidence she doesn't precisely feel.

"They must want me  _bad_." Jonquil does a little shimmy within the ropes. "I guess you know the feeling, eh, honeydew?"

"Eh!" Spellman – or is he going by Scott now? – gives him a rap on the shoulder. It's an overly familiar, entirely thoughtless move, an honest-to-god dead arm for an out-of-line little brother. It takes him a moment to realise what he's done and to stuff himself back into his corner of the couch. "She's a lady," he mutters.

Jonquil's more shocked by his audacity than by the pain, and his mouth hangs open for a moment or two before his teeth click together and he turns up the wattage of his smile. He winks at her.

The truth is she prefers him as a charming, flinty trickster. When Virgil eulogises about the sweet, driven, young man he used to know she finds it hard to picture him. She can't imagine how she could ever relate to a kindly do-gooder whose greatest ambition in life is to swim up and down in a straight line. Nor was she made to be a nursemaid. She has no interest in spending her life nursing a broken toy.

What she wants the man in black and yellow. She wants her dance partner, her rival. The man whose sweeping cruelties are as vast as his sudden wells of kindness are deep. The one who makes her every nerve sing with anticipation.

She's been foolish, she sees that now. It had always been a bore how tight he'd kept himself tied to the SPECTRUM apron strings. How, just when they were having fun, he would regurgitate some piece of fanatical dogma at her feet, like a hairball, reminding her that no matter how liberated he seemed, he was still in some ways as much a prisoner as those poor dim souls that SPECTRUM kept enslaved in the White Tower.

When it had turned out he was a lost prince, with a kingdom to return to and a decent, determined brother on a quest to find him—it had seemed like a gift. She had thought it would be easy, that with Virgil's help, freeing him from Chalk's control would have been like popping a jelly out of the mould. She had thought he would be himself, but better and kinder and with a name and a purpose that were his alone.

Goddammit, she's not a small child. How could she have thought it would be this easy?

"So, what should would do now?" asks John.

"Enquiries will have to be made," says Sylvia. "Through the appropriate channels. Perhaps some sort of trade can be arranged."

"Out of the question," says John. "We're not simply trading Alan for Gordon."

That slippery smile returns. "Who says its Gordon they want, dead man? Seems to be they wouldn't be much interested in spoiled goods like me when they could have prime cut like you and titch here." He turns towards Scott "What do you think, Little League? The Brass did say they liked the look of your brain. Maybe they wanna move in? Rip the kitchen out? Paint the walls a different colour. Whaddaya think?"

"Shut up."

"Virgil and I are going to take a trip to Alan's laboratory," says Penelope. "To try to learn exactly what it was he was working on and if it will be of any interest to SPECTRUM. Anything we can potentially leverage is useful."

"Good idea," says John. "Except I better go instead of Virgil."

Virgil bristles immediately. "Listen, I'm not having Alan's personal stuff being nosed around by some… some… whoever the fuck you are. Whatever the fuck you are."

"I'll know what we're looking for," John replies, setting his tea cup on the table. "I was at MIT for years and I have training in the sciences. I also have EOS to crack any confidential files."

"Well, you're not going without me," snaps Virgil.

"That's an excellent idea," she says, before he realises how he's trapped himself. "Why don't you and John go along to MIT and see what you can find?"

His face turns white, then red, then green. But he won't refuse her. "Yes, Penelope."

She feels at once guilty and glad that she won't have to look at him for a little while.

Because she's beginning to realise It's Virgil who is Alice after all, pulled down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass into a world that makes no sense. And she's his white queen, she realises, promising him jam-yesterday and jam-tomorrow but never jam today. Asking him to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

One: That a monster has swallowed your brother's soul.

Two: That your dead brother can be alive again.

Three: That your older brother can be shrived of his sins and become your younger brother.

Four: That I can love you as much as I love Jonquil.

Five: That Alan can be saved.

Six: That you can be saved.

"And Virgil?"

"Yes."

"Cooperate."

* * *

Penelope claps her hands and the room breaks up around her, splits along the lines she's scored in the surface.

The Lady Sylvia seems to gravitate towards the man called Ben, who rises from his chair in deference to her Ladyship. They circle each other without moving, and there's an ongoing, sub-surface evaluation going on between the pair of them. They both seem like the sort of people who speak that language of flickered gazes and subtle nods. Penelope's fluent. Virgil is not. He knows what he's seeing, but doesn't know what it means.

"I think Mr. Kyrano and I have some catching up to do," Sylvia announces, with a smile that means something. "If you'd oblige me, Ben, darling, I could do with your assistance particularly. Parker can hold the fort here, I'm sure. And I'm just desperately curious just how you managed to bounce back with such vitality, considering I'm quite sure I shot you clean through the heart."

"I'm curious why exactly you shot me in the first place," Ben comments mildly, as though she's asked after nothing more sinister than the weather. "I'm certainly glad to be of service, of course, allowing that my principal has no objection—" he trails off and glances across the room.

The redhead is still sat on the couch, trying to cajole Virgil's brother into eating an endive leaf full of chicken salad, and takes a minute to realize he's being referred to. He blinks a little owlishly when he catches on. "Who, me? Is that still me? I don't think I need any more babysitting, Ben, I'm fine. And it's just MIT. The worst thing MIT ever threw at me was Tau Epsilon Phi and their refusal to take 'no' for an answer. And seeing as I look more like a prof than a pledge these days,  _that_  shouldn't be a problem. Besides, I'll have Virgil." He chuckles lightly to himself, "There's still a hardcoded flight-response in most of MIT's alumni, when it comes to anyone large and jock-shaped. No offense."

Virgil doesn't miss the glance Ben sends his way, cool and calculating. "I was thinking less about a meat shield, John, and more about someone to keep hold of your collar and keep you out of trouble," he says, and there's a note of suggestion there. "Scott deserves a break."

"That's not who they are," Virgil snaps automatically, without meaning to raise his voice as sharply as he does, and the outburst draws the eyes of everyone in the room. He feels the heat of embarrassment colour his cheeks, even as he hauls himself out of his armchair and folds his arms across his chest. "They're not."

He's made it awkward. He's made everyone uncomfortable, but he doesn't care. The brunet shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, where he's moved to stand behind his elder brother. The redhead's gone quite still and there's something uncomfortably penetrating about his green-eyed—and John's eyes were  _blue_ , damn it—gaze. And the monster in his brother's skin is just grinning at him, thrilled and delighted to watch Virgil making an ass of himself.

Penelope just sighs, and for a moment the way she looks at him is a mixture of frustration and pity. Then it's just frustration, and he knows why—because he's already disregarded everything she'd tried to tell him, back at Alan's apartment. He doesn't care.

They—all of them—they can't realize what they're doing, using his brothers' names to refer to these two strangers, taking their respective impossibilities at face value. Every instance of "Scott" or "John" is like a hammerblow on his psyche, splintering hairline cracks across the surface. Penny, out of everyone, has to know what this is doing to him.

Before anyone else can say anything, a prim little  _ahem_  fills the room, and the TV on the far wall of the living room turns on. Against black background, a ring of white lights renders itself on the screen. "If I may—" a light, girlish voice begins, and Virgil freezes. He'd forgotten about the AI. He glances surreptitiously around the room, trying to gauge anyone else's reactions, but no one seems particularly startled by her presence.

"Of course you may," the redhead answers warmly, and rises from the couch, crosses the room. "I'm sorry I've neglected to make your introduction."

"It's quite all right, John. I'm rather a lot to explain in one go, and we're beginning to be pressed for time. I'll make yours instead."

The screen blinks and starts to fill with information, a full profile populating itself beside a portrait-style ID picture as she speaks, "Dr. Jeremiah Grant Travers, Professor of Computer Sciences, visiting from Stanford with your little brother Samuel." The brunet perks up at this and gives a little salute crossed with a wave towards the TV screen. "Dr. Travers, your PhD was on Model-driven Situational Awareness in Large-scale, Complex Systems—" —this gets a chuckle and a nod for some obscure reason— "—and you're here to meet with a student you've been in contact with, regarding some software development he requires for his own work."

"Dr. Travers" is already shrugging out of his suit jacket, looks slightly more professorial in the grey sweater he wears underneath. He retrieves a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles from his pocket and taps them against his palm before putting them on. "What about…?"

The screen changes and Virgil starts violently as his own image appears and a similar profile appears. "David Alexander Thompson," she names him. "California native, Stanford undergraduate, and your TA."

The skeptical once over Virgil gets to stop just shy of offensive, but then the redhead cracks a grin. "They appear to build their computer sciences undergrads on a rather larger scale out in California."

"He bodybuilds, competitively," the AI declares dryly. "Won a strongman competition last year. Very good for heavy lifting. Perhaps you'll need someone to pick up a server. You're vaguely intimidated by him."

Virgil doesn't think that's true, with the way his new partner laughs aloud, "Touche."

The profile on the screen changes, and the details of Sergeant Victor Tillerton's life fill the screen instead. "At need, he's  _actually_  an undercover GDF Marshall from the Cyber Terrorism Unit, assigned to you because you've had a few death threats from the Luddites."

Dr. Travers makes a face. "Are they actually still a thing? Even here? Never mind, I don't want to know. All right, I can work with that. You'll be staying here, I take it? The range on my comm should be good enough, and I'd rather you were somewhere secure."

"Yes. My basic system parameters are all intact, but I'm still compiling my more robust functions. Anything you need I'll be able to do remotely, though it make take longer than the usual. And  _Samuel_  will be staying here to eat a proper meal and have a shower and a nap."

This is met with immediate protest, "Aww, EOS, c'mon." The young man chews his lower lip and shares a glance with his brother. "I really think I should stay with—"

"No arguments." There's a warning flare of irritated yellow on the screen, but then this brightens to a kinder shade of green, "Besides, I need to teach you the basics of your new HUD. Stay here and relax. We'll have fun. I'll get you pizza. If you're  _very good_ , we can go for ice cream."

"I'm not  _twelve_ ," the brunet objects peevishly.

The newly christened doctor clears his throat. "Ben's got the right of it, though Sco—Sam. You deserve a bit of a break, you flew almost the whole way here, and we haven't stopped since then. You'll be fine here, EOS has an eye on the place—and actually, Parker, if you're  _very nice_  to her, EOS can patch you into every security feed in the hotel, and she can probably give you a read on any local law enforcement chatter, anything else you might want or need."

Parker glances at the screen and affects an air of genteel surprise, sketches a little bow towards the screen. "Cor blimey, will she?"

"If you're nice to me," EOS answers primly.

"That's a right lovely shade of green on you, your computership. Can I h'offer you h'anything? A nice new circuitboard, pr'haps? Spot of RAM? Game of chess?"

There's a very human sounding giggle. "I would love to play chess."

Parker taps his nose and winks. "Might even let you win."

"You can gauge how well she likes you by how badly you get beaten," Dr. Travers comments dryly. He turns and Virgil watches his gaze flicker around the room, taking stock of everyone else. He pauses when he gets to Penny, still sat on her foot stool, just listening. "Penny, you probably need some rest? I hope you weren't intending to go back out. Get Mr. Safeword to eat something, he's being stubborn and he'd starve to death out of spite."

"I would  _not_  and fuck you, dead man." But there's no heat in it, it seems like a reflex. There's a twisted up sensation of guilt, as Virgil realizes no one else seems to have thought to  _feed_  his brother. It dissolves away at the sight of Jonquil's shark tooth grin, directed at Penny. "But yeah, okay. I'll bite. Pen, you wanna feed me? Send the boy out for sushi, I'll take yellowfin nigiri racked up all down your bare back. Wasabi at the base of your spine. Like that one time in Tokyo. I  _know_  you remember."

"Don't be hideous, Jonquil," Penelope answers absently, but Virgil knows her well enough to know that this isn't a denial, and his throat wants to close up. He takes a modicum of comfort from the fact that Penelope hasn't been paying Jonquil the least attention, and has instead been concentrating on Dr. Jeremiah Travers. In his direction she radiates approval, looking up at the redhead with a smile and an arched eyebrow. "One day—and hopefully one day soon, once we've sorted this whole mess out," she tells him, "you're going to tell me just what on Earth it is you  _do_ , Dr. Travers. Whatever it is, you seem  _rather good_  at it."

He beams back at her, takes the compliment with a gracious little nod. "Well, I don't generally do it  _on Earth_ , but yes. No, yeah. Yeah, I am. Best in the world, when I'm at my best. Like I said back in Norway, Lady Penelope. At your service."

" _That_  remains to be seen," Sylvia remarks. She and Ben have already made their way towards the door, ready to leave, but she seems to have one last question, and her gaze is intent as she questions, "But it does make me curious, young man, whether you have a codename I ought to be aware of? Hopefully not some rainbow shade of your own, I shall be  _quite_  put out if you turn out to be Agent Vermillion."

"Perish the thought, your ladyship."

Sylvia continues to prod, "Some sort of double-O somebody? Some single letter, some ridiculously alliterative pseudonym? Some Knight of the Round Table? There must be  _something_."

Dr. Travers shrugs and then, diffident, "Thunderbird Five, then, if you insist."

" _Ah_ ," Sylvia says and the glance she shares with Ben is significant, almost triumphant. "I  _thought_  so."

* * *

Scott knows something about third wheels. Usually it's because he's one of the other two.

There's a frisson in the room, like the drop in air temperature before a rain storm. Since John and Virgil cleared out it's like there's an ionic charge building between Penelope and Gordon. Mr. Parker seems to sense it too, because after checking with Lady Penelope he excuses himself to deal with the bellboy. Scott doesn't ask how, and stupidly misses his chance to offer to tag along and lend a hand. He holds the door as Parker departs, with the promise to be back " _in just two shakes, lad, h_ _'won't be a tick_."

He closes the door and reluctantly turns back towards the goings on in the suite proper.

And Gordon and Penelope are looking at each other as if they are the only people in the world and not saying  _anything._

Scott's not sure that sex is going to be the end result, but something explosive is about to happen. Maybe it's going to be more screaming and hysterics and disassociated homicidal rage from Gordon. Maybe it's a declaration of love. Maybe they're going to kick the shit out of each other.

No—he looks from one to another—it's sex. It's definitely going to be sex.

The thing about being the third wheel is if you don't move out of the way you get rolled over. "I think I'll go to the bar."

Neither of them respond.

"Your ladyship, I'm going to the bar for a while. Is that okay? Lady Penelope? Ma'am?"

The use of her full title seems to stir her out of some sort of trance, and her eyes flicker upward to meet his gaze, and she takes in his obvious discomfort at a glance. "Oh," she says, as though faintly surprised that he's still here. There's a certain weariness about her, with her attention pulled away from its chosen focal point. There's a peculiar moment in which he has a flicker of doubt about the wisdom of leaving her alone, but it fades quickly. "Yes, of course."

"Thank you, ma'am." Scott grabs a book from one of the shelves and retrieves his newly acquired leather jacket—his singular prized-possession within this bizarre neighbouring universe—then he exits the room.

"It would be more advisable for you to stay in the suite," says EOS in his ear as he steps into the elevator. "One location is easier to secure."

"Oh, you think so?" says Scott.

"John would advise you to stay in the room."

"John doesn't know everything about everything," says Scott and jabs the button for the lobby.

The HUD is still taking some getting used to. He's used to the combat HUDs fitted on the air force planes he flies back home, but those are suited only to telling him his air speed and altitude and the location of bogeys. EOS's displays are as polymath as the rest of her. She feeds him ambient air temperature, distance to his target, local news stories and the history of the hotel. He passes a group of guests in the lobby and she populates his vision with personal information about all of them. Wherever he looks, there's a little gold tag that is getting progressively further and further away. This, he assumes, must be John.

The hotel bar is large and chic, leather and brass features with a marble bar and a big tropical fish tank as the room's centrepiece. He sits at the bar and picks up a menu, which EOS helpfully overlays with the calorie counts and sodium contents of each item.

The bartender IDs him and he flashes up his new credentials before ordering a couple of sliders and a beer. In the corner of his eye the birthdate on his credentials flashes and rolls forward by two years. He orders a cherry coke instead and she restores his age to above the legal limit.

He learned long ago that a book is a great prop to have in a bar. The right book, read in the right way, can attract the right sort of attention or can ward people off. This book is called  _'Types of Ethical Theory'_  and poised at the bridge of his nose, it almost guarantees he won't be disturbed and can give his full attention to what EOS wants to show him.

She starts with his new ID.

Sam Conrad Travers is 22, a California native. She's flattered him in his ID shot, doctored it so that his hair is longer at the sides and on top, which blunts the severity of his widow's peak. His dimples are showing, even though he's got the customary DMV scowl on.

He flicks through the details of his back story. He's a recent Columbia graduate in aeronautic engineering. He has taken a year off to go travelling before attending grad school in the fall. "Harvard Business School," she tells him. "You're not enthusiastic, but you recognise the need for a solid grounding in business if you are to start up a non-profit organisation."

" _Do_  I want to set up an NGO?"

"You do. And while your older brother is in town you're here to look for apartments." She flashes up a few rental properties. "There's a nice two bed in Harvard Square you're very interested in."

"Business school. Harvard Square. Got it."

"You and Jeremiah are close, but you're half-brothers. You lived with your father and he lived with his mother. That should explain away any discrepancies in your joint history."

"Okay. Other siblings?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself."

"Fine. Fine. Can you take me through the HUD?"

Eating onion rings and drinking his cherry coke, he lets her guide him through the basics. It's rather a lot to process, but he refrains from saying so, because he just knows if he does she'll bite back with the measly percentage of John's data feed he's receiving.

"What if I want to do a data search?" he asks her.

"Then you tell me. My search algorithms are much more powerful than any commercial search engine."

"Oh. Okay."

"What is it you wish to search for?"

"You're going to tell me you can't do it."

"There's nothing I can't do."

"Search - Scott Tracy," he says.

"I can't do that."

Red X's populate the screen to drive her point home and Scott feels his temper flare a little. "You see?"

"That search function is sealed."

"Did John tell you to do that?"

"Yes. But I sealed off that search function of my own accord before he made his request."

"Why?"

"I do not think it is information you require access to."

"Isn't a guy entitled to know his own future?"

"Nobody should know too much about their own destiny."

"Now, you're just quoting Back to the Future."

"It is apt. And there is very little scientific literature to quote on resolving this dilemma. Besides, this is not your future."

"No, it's not  _John_ _'s_  future. It could still happen to my family. To  _me._ " This has been plaguing him. "My John hasn't turned twenty-two yet, my Gordon's still a kid. The terrible things that happened here could still happen there. Or, what if they happened  _because_  I'm here? Because I'm out of time or space or whatever."

"Doubtful. The information available, the way you interface with technology suggests your world more closely resembles the version of reality John and I came from. Equally, your developing skillset suggests you are being groomed for a future in line with ours."

" _Groomed_?" A french fry turns to ash in his mouth. This hits far too close to home.

"By your father."

Suddenly he's no longer even a little hungry. "Hey! I'm not – "

"You are physically fit, possess a first-class education in a STEM field and are in the top 0.1% in terms of aeronautics ability. You are more used to command than the average 22 year old – "

"I have four younger brothers."

"Yet, are more comfortable in taking unilateral action than most trained soldiers. You've had rigorous training in first aid."

"That's just part of my job."

"You speak several languages, are proficient in Morse code. You have a reasonable, if amateur grasp of IT systems. Are you an excellent shot?"

"What's that got to do with anything? My dad hates guns."

"Immaterial. Have you applied for your space operations permit yet?"

He remembers the half-completed WWSA application form among his things. It seems like several lifetimes ago now. His ears are getting hot. He just knows they have turned bright pink. "Is this the part where you tell me I was grown in a lab?"

They used to say that sometimes in school. Or they'd say it about John. Or to John. "Hey Tracy, did you come out of a vat?" "Hey Tracy, how much did your dad have to pay to get you out of a catalogue?" Then he'd see red, and end up in the principal's office, nursing raw knuckles and a sore head.

"No. I don't think growing you in a lab would have produced nearly as successful an outcome as random chance and attentive education did producing you and John."

"Gee, thanks."

"What I mean is that your father raised you with a particular purpose in mind and that purpose was not to take over Tracy Industries."

"My Dad's alive," he says without thinking. "Don't talk about him in the past tense. Please." He's been keeping that that thought, and the emotional sinkhole that goes with it, at arm's length. It's not grief, just the promise of grief, a thought experiment of what grief would look like. Because Dad,  _his_  Dad, his bastard, manipulative, brilliant, fearless Dad, is not and cannot be dead or gone without the world falling in on itself.

"Very well, I will modulate my verb usage when referring to your father."

"Come to the point, would you?"

"My point is that you are spending far too much time worrying about the past actions of someone you cannot control, when you should be thinking about the current actions of the person you are right now."

Scott sighs. "Touché. Open a search protocol for me, would you?"

"Perhaps." She is cagey.

"Alan Shepard Tracy."

His interface flashes green. "That, I can do."

* * *

And then they were two.

Without an entire roomful of people around them, all those disparate goals and personalities and moods and emotions—that, maybe more than anything else, has been what's most exhausting—without the room all blazing with a riot of souls, silver and gold and green and white and red and black, some of the tension starts to ease.

_Her_ , though. The second she'd crossed the threshold, even with his stupid unincredible hulk of an older brother in tow, some of the clamour had started to still. She'd drawn the focus of the room, the way she always does, but most importantly, she'd given him something to lock onto. With Penelope in the room he can draw a bead, can tune out everyone else, and just watch  _her_.

She still sits on her footstool, and the detritus of afternoon tea covers every available surface in the room. And she just lets him watch, like she knows how much it helps.

The curve of her neck, accented by a thread of pale gold, a simple teardrop pendant, the hollow of her throat. The shape of her body beneath the beautifully fitted blouse she's chosen, silk clinging to her every curve. The way her hands move, the way she'll touch her hair or smooth her fingers over her thighs. The way her gaze moves around the room, her eyes and their lovely, lonely blue. She would be. Blue, that is. They haven't ever talked about it, though Jonquil knows her well enough to know she  _thinks_  she'd be Red, probably some rosy, idealized shade of pink. But it's blue. Has to be. With the melancholy that runs all through her, she'd be some pale, delicate blue. Whatever belongs to forget-me-nots, or those threads of colour among black tea leaves, brewing a cup of Lady Grey, cornflowers the same shade as the sky, the colour of freedom.

But nothing shuts her off faster than talking about that kind of thing, nothing walls up the space between them like it does when he talks about SPECTRUM and the things he knows, the things he believes. So he doesn't say anything, makes no mention of her lonely blue soul. He's watched—with no small amount of pleasure—the way Virgil wilts beneath her gaze when she's frustrated with him. Penelope gets annoyed or disappointed, because Virgil is annoying and a disappointment, and he just crumbles.

It's  _great_.

Because Virgil's an idiot, being in love with her. It would be stupid if it weren't so pathetic. As though he could  _possibly_  offer her anything, as though he even has the first idea just who it is he's in love with. All she's done is taken him on like a partner, worked with him. Virgil doesn't know the colour of her soul, all he could possibly know is that she's been  _kind_  to him, taken  _pity_  on him, the poor dumb bastard. Stupid reasons to fall in love with anybody.

Goddamn it.

"I tried to go through the window," he tells her, without entirely knowing why. As conversational openers go, it's pretty weak. "But that didn't work, so Uncle Ben very helpfully tried to throw me through the wall instead. Not that  _that_  worked either, but hey, points for effort."

She winces, visibly sympathetic. And she moves forward slightly, to the nearer edge of her footstool. "We're eight stories up, Jonquil."

" _I_ _'m_  not the one scared of heights, teacake." He shifts, twists his wrists against the cords that bind him, biting deep into his skin, making his body ache where he'd hit the wall. Chuckles to himself at a particular memory, bubbling to the surface. "Speaking of—you got on  _Cloudbase_ , Pen, holy hot fucking hell. How'd you manage that? I've seen you get edgy on a second story balcony."

There's a prim little huff and Penelope sets her shoulders, tosses her hair over her shoulder. "I can't very well go to pieces on the job. It's a silly phobia, half the world's afraid of heights. I'm more than capable of keeping a handle on it. I'm more worried about  _you_ , knowing now what you must be keeping bottled up, every time you set foot aboard a plane."

"Plenty of people afraid of flying, too."

"Not with reasons as good as yours."

He wonders if it scares her as much as it scares him, that they both know what the other is afraid of. He gives her a grin and intones, "Fear is the mindkiller."

She makes a face, doesn't get the reference, and he shrugs, deflects away from the sort of mantra she must think he's repeated. "That's not one of theirs." There's a flickering schism of his thoughts. "Ours." God  _damn_  it.

It's too much to hope that she hasn't noticed. What he has to hope is that she doesn't care, but then she sighs at him, pushes herself up off her little footstool and comes to join him on the couch. Doesn't bode well. Bodes even worse when she says, softly, "You're coming apart at the seams, darling."

"Yeah, well. If people would maybe stop dragging me around like a ragdoll, maybe that wouldn't be the case." Maybe, but they both know better. Jonquil's never had any illusions about what he is, what was done to who he was before. Conditioned, programmed,  _constructed_ —whatever modality gets assigned to the theory of his who, what, how and why, the truth of the matter is that he's starting to lose cohesion. He doesn't actually know what's going to happen when he comes apart. He wonders if she knows how much that scares him. Wonders if it scares her too.

She sits right next to him, near enough to touch, so that her knee rests against his, even as her hand lands atop his kneecap. The other gently pulls back the collar of his shirt, and she peers at the bruising that creeps down his left shoulderblade. There's a disapproving hiss of breath and she tuts softly. " _Really_." A pause. "Mr. Kyrano did this?"

"Dented the drywall. Gonna see that on the  _bill_ , honeybee. I think he maybe doesn't like me so much."

Penelope winces again. "I think perhaps you shouldn't have tried to electrocute one of his charges, love."

He shouldn't laugh, because she's not joking—pun very much not intended, she makes them all the time, and he's never known her to mean them—but then, that's never stopped him laughing before, and it doesn't stop him laughing now. She has to hear the lick of hysteria at the tail end of it, though, because her hand comes up to brush through his hair, and her fingers tighten against his knee. There's such an agonizing softness to her; to her touch, to her skin when it brushes against his, to the way she smells and feels and just  _is_ —the way she's just  _gentle_ , when the past seventy-two hours have done so much damage, when so many people have put their hands on him and meant him  _harm_. It's  _hard_  not to yield beneath her touch.

So he doesn't try.

He lets her tear apart the last fragile scraps of resistance, lets his head fall heavy against her hand and his body curl towards her, even if his hands are still bound. He can't get far, but he can close the distance between them, can give in when she pulls his forehead against her shoulder and presses a kiss against his temple. "I'm sorry, Gerad. Dearest, I  _am_  sorry," she whispers, and he hates to hear her say it, because it opens up the possibility that he should blame her, when he doesn't  _want_  to. "I'm sorry that it's happening this way. I'm sorry I've led people to believe the worst of you. I know there's more to you than just what seems most monstrous. I'm sorry that's all they see."

He groans at that and her arms tighten around him, she shushes softly in in his ear, but there's something he wants to say, and he doesn't want to waste any stolen moment of closeness to her, because it's not going to last. He's not sure whose voice it is, whose words come stumbling out of his mouth when he says, "Fuck 'em.  _Fuck them_ , all of them. Let's run. Let's  _go_ , let's go away. Me and you. We could just go."

She doesn't pull away. She nuzzles her face a little closer against his, and he can feel the warmth of her breath against his skin. It's not a  _no_ , so he continues, picking up speed now. Delusional, but daring to hope against hope—

"You gotta want that, too. I know. I  _know you_ , Penelope, don't pretend I don't. This whole fucking mess, this goddamn  _nightmare_  with my goddamn brothers. It wasn't what you wanted, it wasn't what you meant. You wanted me, you meant to come for  _me_. You wanted me bad enough to leave the ground seventy-five thousand feet behind you. And I would've gone. If…if…if it hadn't hadn't been for all the rest of it, all the shit that broke me, I'd have gone with you. You could've just asked, because I wanted to, I swear. I've always wanted to. So…so  _fuck_  all the rest of it. Okay? Pen?  _He_ —Virgil—he wanted his brothers back. He's got 'em,  _two_  of them, so he can have  _those two_. He can have the dead man and the damned kid. SPECTRUM can have Alan. He'll want that. And…and you can have  _me_. All of me, whatever parts still work, after it all comes apart. No one else'll want me. Pen? Okay?"

"My love—"

He doesn't mistake the way emotion shivers through her when she starts to protest, the way she tightens her grip again and lets out a soft, shuddering sigh. He cuts her off, before she can finish the sentence— "Penelope,  _please_."

But even that doesn't work.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. We can't. You know we can't."

"We—"  _Can_. Can go. Can just  _go_ , can disappear. The pair of them, they're more than a match for one another, they're  _meant_  for one another. There's a big wide world out there, but they both know their way around it, and they could be  _together_. That's all he's ever wanted, the only thing, really. Just someone to be together with. "—we…"

She pulls away and his heart starts to break as she does, the line that she's wound all around it drawing tight, painful. Her hands come up to his face again, only now she kisses him to keep him from saying anything further. Really, properly, like she means it, with sorrow in her voice as she gives a gasping little moan, and with the brief, barely there taste of salt, as her tears come between them. After a while he even starts to kiss her back, and a small feeble part of him hopes that even if she'd told him  _no_ , that  _this_  might mean that part of her is saying  _yes_.

But when Penelope pulls back again and lets him meet her eyes, imploring—she shakes her head.

So that's that, then, even as he deflates, sags weakly against her, for lack of anyone else.

It seems like she stays for a long time, holding him, because for a long time he lets her. But he hurts. And he's starving. And he's been wearing the same suit for three days and he hasn't showered or shaved. His face itches and he feels disgusting, coated with filth and grime and everything that makes him want to tear his skin off, makes him want to scour and scourge every inch of his surface, burn away everything down to his bones, until he's someone else. Someone worth wanting.

Purity only through fire.

It's time he found something to burn.

* * *

Really, she's just being selfish when she kisses him again .

She's kicking the tyres, looking under the hood, seeing if the wheels still spin. She's trying to discover if there's anything left of him that she wants.

Did they leave her the man or the boy?

She's always liked him for the things he couldn't bring himself to do.

He's always played her like she's a game he wanted to win.

And now he's sitting there pleading and begging, offering up the broken pieces of himself to her, spreading out his entrails on the slab as if she might augur the future in them.

How unappetizing it all is.

So, she kisses him to know him better.

The second time around, his chapped lips are sure and greedy. His stubble tickles her chin. He smells of sweat, ozone and the stale reek of cigarettes. It's nothing like all their other kisses, veiled as they were behind layers of caution and calculation and ironic regard. His want for her is undisguised. If he could, he would fold himself up inside her.

It leaves her more confused than ever.

A wise agent would leave this one be, recognize a lost cause when she sees it.

She thought she was a wise agent.

She takes him by the hand and leads him to the bedroom.

He lets him lead her as quietly as a little lamb, but as soon as they enter the bedroom and she has locked the door, a change comes over him. He's rough with her as he presses her against the bedroom door. His kisses are as cruel as they are clever, calculated to take her breath away.

He always did have a silver tongue.

"Cut me loose." The tips of his bound fingers toy with the ends of her hair. "I'm burning up. I want to touch you."

"You'll go out the window." His mouth on the curve of her neck is just  _delicious_  and if she closes her eyes she is back in a simpler time, one of secrets and champagne, when the worst thing she had to worry about was that he'd double-cross her.

Her languid stretch allows his lips access to the pulse beneath her neck and he growls to reward her. "Not unless you come with me, sweetpea."

"You forg – " Her breath hitches as he nuzzles her neck. "You forget I'm not overly fond of heights."

"Maybe I like you scared, sugarplum." Perhaps he's slipped something into her drink? Perhaps this whole, surreal experience is just a nightmare and they're back in Prague? Perhaps this is an elaborate plan to get the location of the microdot from her? That would be so like him. It would explain her racing heartbeat, her desire to throw caution to the wind. "Maybe I like you off balance and shivering and needy. It's so rare. C'mon, cut me loose."

She brings her hand up and scratches a fingernail against the grain of his beard. "You're filthy."

There's that grin. So familiar, so reassuring in its assured self-interest. "You like me filthy."

"No. You're disgusting." She pushes him away and he staggers back in an exaggerated fashion until he bumps against the bed. He sits down. She smooths her hair.

He gazes at her and the grin slips a little, something of the boy slips through. There's something of a reverie in it as he says, "Oh God, you're beautiful. You're so beautiful. They have no idea. The most beautiful thing about an angel is her fall. You're blue, your soul it's so blue. I burn for it. You're so – "

"Hush." She puts a finger to his lips to silence him and then one by one, she undoes the buttons on her blouse.

He groans. "Cut me loose. Penny, cut me loose. I want you."

Her blouse floats to the floor. Her skirt follows. She steps back to let him see all of her and, particularly, to see the knife cinched in its holster to her outer thigh. "Do it yourself," she says, turns and saunters into the bathroom. Her underwear hits the floor as she does.

She steps into the shower, turns the dials on as high as she can go and leans against the cool tile. She bites her lip until she draws blood.

There is a long moment. Then through the steamy haze she hears the bathroom door open. Moments later she feels a hand on the small of her back.

* * *

Afterwards they lie naked on the king-sized bed, passing a cigarette between the two of them.  _Chanel Rouge Coco #104_  stains the filter tip and his mouth where she's kissed him a hundred times. There are teeth marks on her inner thigh. Charcoal-coloured smoke curls between them like a kept secret.

"Do you think it's really true?" she asks him.

"Is what true?" He takes a long drag.

"That they're your brothers."

"Sure, why not?"

"Because it's impossible. Because Scott Tracy is a 32-year-old recluse, not a 22-year-old kid with a chip on his shoulder. Because John Tracy is a dead man."

"I'm a dead man," he passes her the cigarette. "Everyone's a dead man to someone."

She places it to her lips and watch the trail of smoke wind its way to the roof. "What are we going to do now?"

He props his head up on the pillow, quirks an eyebrow at her. "Same again?"

She pouts. "You know very well that's not what I mean."

He leans over and plants a light kiss on the bend of her shoulder. "You know, it's dangerous to care this much about me."

"You told me that before." In Seoul, over dinner. Or was it in Corsica, in that little camp bed they'd shared?

"It's true." He takes her hand in one of his, kisses the pad of each of her fingers in turn, never breaking eye contact. His mouth is smudged and needy. "I'm dangerous."

She sighs and drops the cigarette into the crystal ashtray, then she reaches up with her hand to caress his face. "I like dangerous."

His hand goes over hers. It's big enough to encircle both her wrists. He presses both her hands above her head as he leans in for a sensuous kiss. "That's what I'm afraid of."

She realises a second too slow what's happening and how stupid –  _stupid! –_  she's been, but by then it's too late. His lips are still soft and demanding on hers, even as he closes the cuffs around her wrists and locks her to the bed's iron railing.

And she's only angry at herself. Furious at how stupid she could have been to leave him alone even for a moment, to give him time to secure the cuffs used to bring him here – her cuffs – beneath the pillows and make his plans. How she had not seen the blindingly obvious that the return of his more confident self might prefigure the return of his desire to beat her at her own game.

"Gerad!" she snarls. "Ger– " But his tie goes into her mouth next and is cinched tight, gagging her.

"Now, now, kitten." He bends to nibble her ear. "Nobody likes a sore loser."

She hates him, then. So much. She hates him as he takes his time moving around the room, considering his options, looking for resources. Parker, after all, has made himself scarce. She'd let Scott slip away to the bar. She doesn't know just how the AI is keeping tabs on everything, but there's no way Penelope can think of to summon its help. And Jonquil knows all this just as well as she does.

Eventually, as he moves through the room, he opens one of the closets. He discovers the package waiting for him purely by accident, lifts it off the hanger. It's a wardrobe bag, matte black, expensive. "Well, now."

If she expects him to go for the window or make a quick escape, he surprises her. Instead he enters the bathroom and returns with a small shaving kit. He seats himself at the vanity and tilts the mirror so that she can see him and he can see all of her. Their eyes meet in the mirror. He winks at her. Then he lathers himself up and begins to shave, using the knife she gave him. He drags the straight blade tortuously slowly along the curve of his throat, teasing her, smiling all the time.

When he's smooth shaven and baby-faced again, he pats his face dry and unzips the package he found in the wardrobe. It's a suit. Slate grey, impeccably tailored, meant as a gift from her to the new him. He whistles in appreciation and begins to dress; shirt, waistcoat, suit jacket, black leather belt and patent leather brogues. He tucks the yellow and black check pocket square into his suit pocket and adjusts his perfect Windsor knot, places his pill box and his cigarettes into his breast pocket.

Only then does he return to the bedside, hook his finger around the gag and drag it out of her mouth.

"Untie me," she snarls immediately.

It's his turn to pout. "But you're so sexy when you hate me."

"Untie me  _now_."

"Do it yourself."

"This isn't a joke! You've got nowhere to go. If you go back to SPECTRUM now they'll kill you."

"I know. Gerad Jonquil may have to die." His fingers trace her jawline and she turns her head away. "I'm going to need to be a brand-new man if I'm going to be worthy of you." He sighs. "But I'm not that man yet."

He plants a kiss on the edge of her lips and slips the gag back into her mouth. "Don't burn too much for me while I'm gone, Princess." He pauses and in spite of everything, there might be the faintest hint of an apology in his voice, when he says, "And you might not wanna watch this next part."

She doesn't know what that means and she can't demand an answer, but she gets one soon enough. He crosses the room to one of the windows, winds a handle to crank it open. He must hear it when she screams at him through the gag, because she can't bear the sight of him putting a foot up on the window ledge. She squeezes her eyes shut, unable to help herself, and she can feel her breath coming faster, seized with terror at the thought of him falling. She hates him,  _loathes him,_  perhaps never moreso than now—but she's also making herself lightheaded with the fear of him falling to his death. Moments that might be hours pass, and when she manages to open her eyes again, he's gone. And the open window is the only indication he was ever there at all.


End file.
